


Get To Be Mine

by septiembre



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Flirting, Grief/Mourning, Masturbation, Post-Season 3 (Good Girls), Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24461050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/septiembre/pseuds/septiembre
Summary: Beth makes money moves to lock down an asset to her empire. And if she has to pretend Rio's her partner (in more ways than one) -- so what?
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Comments: 75
Kudos: 385
Collections: Good Girls Prompt-a-thon 2020





	1. The Premise

**Author's Note:**

> THE PROMPT: Post season 3, in their feelings Brio have to pretend to be a couple for an extended period of time like a weekend or a week somewhere for some work related reason. I’m talking dressing up, I’m talking hot make up sex, I’m talking jealous Rio, I’m talking teasing Rio, I’m talking yelling their feelings (but not too many because who are we kidding), I’m talking just an all around good time.
> 
> All in good time y'all. ;-)

It was a mess of a Fall.

One night, early in knowing Rio, Beth told him that he was worse than her newborn children -- exacting and depleting. It was a prescient comment. Little did she know then, it would only descend into a full-out nightmare, the one that night at his loft, and reverberate with the vicious hold of his vengeance.

Beth spent last Fall clawing her way back to the surface and back into his good graces. The beginning of her children’s school year in August had sent her back to the deep end. While business with Rio shifted away from being quite so dire, quite so deadly, Beth was treading water on the muscle memory of school years prior. Her life was caught in the intersection of her parenting, her shifts at work, the printing, the fudging of the books -- and sustained by her intricate web of lies.

Around her birthday in September, Beth’s routine at the store shifted. Dorothy, the owner of the Paper Porcupine, came down with the flu early that year and began to delegate the day-to-day operations of the store. Beth got her feet wet helping out with the ordering, restocking, and, most importantly, with the scheduling. Her birthday present to herself was financial stability. Her gifts that year included in no particular order, homemade cards from her children, a kiss from Dean, the satisfaction of making a lump sum payment on the house’s mortgage, and the smile on Rio’s face when she delivered his burgeoning cut.

The days bounded ahead. The familiar rhythm of patching the costumes at Halloween, mixed with the new -- patching Dean’s books to keep up with all of her, Ruby, and Annie’s work. The pace was exhausting and something (honestly, many things) needed to shift to make it liveable.

On Thanksgiving Day, Beth resolved to leave Dean. They held the meal that year at his mother’s house (they still hadn’t replaced much of the house furniture). When Beth really thought about it, she knew that she liked Judith, but the afternoon drew out painful and diminishing. Looking ahead at another holiday season full of accommodating her husband and making herself small, left her sitting at the meal table feeling hollow. She excused herself for a walk, claiming to want to work off a meal she had mostly pushed around her plate. It took Beth two hours to get herself back to the house, to get ahold of herself, and then she knew what she had to do. It had to end.

In the middle of the busy holiday season -- retail and otherwise -- Beth set up drinks for them late one night and asked Dean to keep the house. There was no quarter for him to put up a fight, not with her capital fulling his new dream, her red lines marking up all of his books. It wasn’t a drawn-out explosive thing as it had been in the past, but a solemn reminder that the books at the store were in his name, that he was on her hook.

Beth was done, a ghost in her own marriage. These days, she was physically gone most of the time with her schedule, too. She and Dean talked to the kids and made the plans. They would continue to co-parent and she would continue to mind his books. When Beth left Dean, she walked out with: her purse, her mother’s Mezuzah, the bottles of bourbon, a duffle bag of her clothes, and her dignity. 

Her freedom beckoned.

Beth rented a small apartment ten minutes away from the kids, blocks away from the Paper Porcupine. It was temporary (she promised herself she would size up once she could buy a house of her own) and it was _hers_. After careful review and months of a shared air mattress, the first thing she did was order a king-sized bed off of the internet, pillow-top with a beautiful headboard made of wood. She assembled it in the empty space that was completely and solely hers and felt a unique sort of pride -- one she had only felt before in her (criminal) business ventures. She supposed some women would think it sad, but what she saw was all of the possibilities.

She bought more furniture: a lamp for her bedside (propped up on a few tomes detailing the ins-and-outs of manual printing), a few dishes, a kitchen table. It was now January and the dead of Michigan winter and Ruby had shared her spare down blankets and a space heater to help keep her warm and alive. Annie loaned Beth her well-loved armchair, for prime divorcée elegance, now that Beth had joined the club. Ruby had framed pictures of Beth's kids, pictures of teenage Ruby and Beth in high school, of them hugging at each other’s weddings, and perched them strategically on the available surfaces. Annie contributed pictures of her and Ben, and replicas of the few childhood pictures Beth and Annie had, and it made Beth's heart _full_.

She inaugurated the first real girls' night at her new place by crying all over her soul mate and her sister. They streamed 90 Day Fiancé on Annie’s laptop and got wine drunk on the bed. Into their third bottle, Annie nudged Beth’s shoulder and mouthed, “I love you.” It set Beth's tears off again.

The next morning, Ruby who was adamantly _not_ hungover, slowly made her coffee and said, “B, you know I love you to death because I do not just sleep all bunched up on a mattress for anyone. A girl likes her space.”

The new apartment wasn’t anything like the nest Beth had created for her children, and the wilder thing inside reminded her not to tread that direction for now. It was a new year, a new type of life -- this was just what she needed. Her new path was solidifying around her and she knew she was going to be okay.

* * *

A week had gone by in the new space when Beth checked her new mailbox for the first time. Ruby had sent her a card to inaugurate her new mailing address. Inside she also found a second note in the scrawl that traverses her nightmares and her daydreams. Familiar print shaped the inky lines of “Suerte, Elizabeth.” There was also a key. Looking at it, she knew it was the same kind of key that opened the self-storage units, and the realization hit her about exactly where all of the artifacts of her marriage were sitting.

She polished off a few drinks, for courage, for sanity, and then made her way down to the intersection of Gratiot and Mack. The key opened the locks to several units. Some were the same ones Rio had stashed his stuff, that he must have reclaimed, sold off, or otherwise spirited away over the past year.

For a solid bit, she chastised herself. Beth should have guessed this is where he dumped it all. She suspected these units was were even still in her name and she began to spiral down a path where she would never win, never fully predict him, never fully know him-- Then, she took a breath and decided to chalk it up to near-death stress and cut herself some slack.

Beth hired Rio's guys and sent most of it back to Dean. Beth felt somewhat vindicated in this parting gift to the house she had left. The kids weren't wholly interested in their old things, but Beth insisted on reconstituting their bubble, and then removed herself and her terrible influence back to her apartment. She snagged some of what was hers -- her favorite quilt, her bakeware, a dresser, her favorite dresses -- including the polka dot one. She donated most of the rest of her clothes and bought some new ones, new underthings, new socks. She made an effort to grow into her new space, work through the visitation schedule, mother her children. She began to reshape her routine.

Soon, it would be time to get out from under _his_ thumb.

She hadn’t seen Rio in person since before Thanksgiving. Mick had been handling the drops with sporadic updates from their boss here and there. Since she had finalized Dean’s front business over the previous summer, things had been easier between them -- a truce of sort.

Rio was heavily involved last Spring, rewarding her efforts with a boon of start-up capital and his presence. Evenings were punctuated by him dropping by on her at Paper Porcupine as she got ready to close, or as she was surrounded by spas at the other office, pouring over the books. He was a new kind of specter -- more benign. He lingered reminding her of her deadlines, of his cut of the cash, of that bathroom, her bedroom, and of those bullets, in different turns.

One late summer day, Rio returned to the park with Marcus. It was _quite_ the reunion for the eight-year-olds. Jane quickly abandoned Danny and Emma to launch herself at Marcus. Hugging each other tight, they shrieked about a best friend ‘xplosion! They immediately began tumbling around the park with gleeful energy. Beth sat on the side of the playground, accompanied by a grumpy Kenny who was coaxed into another park trip on the premise he could sit on the bench with her and use her phone to text his friends. Rio perched himself on the other side of the jungle gym, sun-kissed, a black hole sucking her gaze hungrily back to him. He pointedly pulled out his phone. Unwanted emotions swelled up in Beth's chest. She had never expected to see Rio here again, for their boundaries to include this again.

Eventually, Marcus tugged away Rio’s phone, absconding with it to show Jane a TikTok video. Emma and Danny crept over into the mix. Left without a prop, Rio was reduced to sitting at his bench, rocking his jaw, watching their children run amok. Eventually, the kids settled on a dance to learn, and Kenny was lured in to record the whole thing.

Watching Rio as he continued to avoid her gaze, the laughter and singing of her kids and his echoing through her ears, Beth recognized that one of those emotions she felt was shame.

The next day she called Fitzpatrick’s store to update the stupid ticketing system and cancel the hit. The asshole called her back five minutes later and had the gall to gloat, “I knew you two would figure it out.”

Beth spluttered speechless and a little outraged as Fitzpatrick continued, “I have always admired star-crossed lovers.”

A million thoughts buzzed through her head, the most important and horrific of which, “ _How had he known_?” and secondarily, the impulse to psychically reach through the phone to smack him. Beth settled on dramatically jabbing her finger on the phone screen and hanging up the call.

Rio continued to join her at the park and slowly it all became _less_ \-- terrible and anxiety-ridden and guilt-inducing -- while it also became _more_. He asked her to text him their kids’ dance videos. They began to share the same bench again. Sometimes his knee would graze hers as he adjusted his seat on the bench, or their hands would brush. In a time of busy, busy, busy, those moments jolted her back into her skin, made her palms sweat. She refused to think anything of it. 

In early November, one of the other PTA moms at the elementary school saw them sitting together. Full of perky artifice and a penchant for nasty gossip, Caroline quickly zeroed in on Beth and the younger, tatted man. It was a little comical -- they had finally made it to the same bench but there were still two feet of space between them, swathed in their late-Fall coats. Regardless, it took Caroline less than a minute before she slipped her phone out of her pocket and began to text, her gaze surreptitiously darting to them.

At Beth’s side, Rio groaned. He canted his head back to look up at the sky as if to clear his vision of Caroline. Beth looked over at him, surprised. “You know her, too?”

“Her son is on Marcus’ little league team. She’s the fucking worst.”

If she was completely honest, these commonalities thrilled Beth. She had grinned at him, conspiratorially. “She’s been trying to usurp my place on the PTA for years. After Jane was born, she told me I was too ‘big-boned’ to participate in the annual fashion fundraiser.”

Rio scowled in response, gaze dipping to run along her body, lingering at where her cleavage would be but it was far too cold for that. He shook his head, offended enough for her sake that it brought a flush to her cheeks.

“She’s racist as shit, too. At one of Marcus’ games, I said one damn bit of nothing to her and she turned right around and congratulated me on being ‘so articulate’.”

“Oh _god_.”

“Then, she asked me where we were from.”

Beth grimaced. “That’s… even worse. But unsurprising?”

Rio rolled his eyes. “It is what it is.”

Beth reached out to squeeze at his shoulder. “Well, I’m sorry she treated you like that.”

Rio’s gaze turned wry, and he quirked his eyebrows suggestively, “What? You going to offer me restoration?”

The phrasing made Beth pause. While Caroline’s treatment of others was despicable, enough self-awareness had percolated through these park dates for Beth to reflect on that far worse crime she had committed against Rio. The weight in Rio’s gaze told her that his word choice, _restoration_ , had been intentional. While she certainly owed him an apology of her life for the three scars blasted into his chest, that sorry had stayed firmly under wraps for the better part of a year now, and she didn’t know how today could be that day. Right here, right now with his kid a few feet away, she knew it wasn’t appropriate. She decides to lean into the lewdness.

“I don’t think that means what you think it means.”

“What’s that?”

Beth made an effort to look at him with a scandalized expression. She leaned in to dramatically whisper, “Sexual favors.”

Rio tipped his head back and _laughed_.

Across the way, Beth watched as Caroline held up her phone and took a picture of their general direction. Beth would bet that it’s all the way zoomed in. And you know what, _screw her_.

“It isn’t funny. Besides, that’s not who we are anymore.”

He eyed her a little crookedly, ”But, we were at one point?”

“No.”

Quickly Beth’s eyes darted to the kids preoccupied at the swings. She had turned back to Rio, “Put your arm around me.”

Rio frowned at her. “Nah.”

“If she wants a show, let’s give it to her.”

Rio had pursed his lips. His gaze tracked back to the day’s nemesis who had progressed to talking on her phone, periodically looking in their direction. Then his gaze had pivoted to the kids absorbed in the swingset, then back to Beth.

A beat passed before he leaned in, the movement languid and purposeful as _before_. He tucked her hair behind her ear, dropped his thumb to graze the cleft of her chin. His touch still felt like a brand on her skin and she picked up the scent of his cologne, the notes of vetiver making Beth's head swim. Then Rio pulled away, striding across the playground to collect Marcus.

That was the last time Beth saw Rio in person. Mick took over the drops the week before Thanksgiving, tightlipped and sarcastic as always. Later when the other parents in Caroline’s entourage turned to whisper about her at the holiday fundraiser, Beth had a few dry thoughts about how the supposed interloper in her marriage had disappeared out of thin air again. Regardless, Beth squared her shoulders and held her chin high. _Let them think what they want._

* * *

When Dorothy passed away a few days after Christmas, Beth had had some idea the empathetic older woman had been ill. Miriam -- Dorothy’s daughter, a woman of Beth’s age -- had begun to reach out to confirm accounting details at the store and later had run by to confirm the holiday bonuses. But with the flurry of the retail season and finally leaving Dean, Beth hadn’t any real understanding that Dorothy was so sick. The responsibilities of being lead at the store had long been absorbed into Beth’s work grind and were firmly wrapped into the history of a hellish year. However, a week into January, Miriam had walked into the store as if in a daze. Beth recognized the expression -- it tickling something dormant inside of her. She found herself already tensing, waiting for a blow.

Dorothy’s upper-respiratory illness had vacillated, persisted, and then escalated into pneumonia by mid-December. She had passed a few days before Christmas. Miriam came to take a closer look at the payroll and start to parse out the next steps. Devastated and grieving, Dorothy’s children inherited their mother’s store, and they were in agreement that they wanted to sell. So, Beth did the logical thing and set up a time for her, Miriam, and her sister to talk.

Just like that, the final piece of the puzzle had tumbled straight into Beth’s lap. This was it -- the independence she had been waiting for. Beth would buy the Paper Porcupine.

* * *

Beth’s first thought, unprompted and unwelcome, was to call Rio. She wanted to brag, to celebrate the opportunity, this sure thing. The tiniest part of her wanted to go in on it with him. It was a testament to the foolishness of the human condition that after all the horribleness between them, her brain instinctively gravitated to Rio as her first option. Perhaps, it wasn’t completely stupid on her part. He certainly had the money. But, while murder, vengeance, and theft were now mostly out of the question, she shouldn’t be trying to entangle herself more. Beth pushed the feelings down deep and called Ruby.

“A business like that going to cost a big, old check.”

Beth skirted the line between proud and shy. “I already researched it.”

There was a short pause on the line, then scandalized Ruby said, “B, please, tell me you did not plan for that sweet, old woman to die.”

“No!” Beth countered quickly. “Of course not." God, it's been some time since they've started this whole thing -- crime, business together -- but, Beth's scheming still lands so out of place in their friendship. She makes an effort to power through. "I just figured it was the next step. The owner started taking some time away. It would have been nice to buy her out.”

“ _When_ were you planning to make this purchase?” Ruby clearly thought Beth had lost her mind.

“Soon…ish.”

Another pause. 

“Beth, you have got to start sharing these plans with the rest of us.”

Beth could hear frustration layered with fatigue in Rubys’ voice and tried to deflect. “It wasn’t a _plan_ per se.”

“Do you already have the money?”

Sheepish, Beth admitted, “Most of it.”

“And where was that when you decided to freeze your ass off in your drafty apartment, and not buy yourself adequate bedding?”

“It seemed like a logical sacrifice at the time. ”

Ruby sighed into the phone, “You are lucky you’re my best friend.”

“I’m the luckiest. When we have to do gratitude journal demos for the customers at the store, I always write you first.”

“Yeah, well I better not come second to your demon sister.”

“My demon sister is your other best friend.”

“I mean sometimes I’m not so sure.“

Beth fiddled with the hem of her blouse, feeling a little exposed by how much she already prepared for them to scale up their empire. It had been an eventuality in Beth's mind now for some time. “Can I count on you to help me with some of the rest?”

“Girl, I’ve got you.” The conversation had been loaded, layered with guilt and vulnerability, but this part wasn’t.

Beth felt relief flood through her chest, uncurling the knot of anxiety. “I love your face.”

“You better.”

Beth planned to call her sister after Annie finished her shift at the convenience store, but Annie called Beth straight away. She talked Beth’s ear off as she staffed the register, offended to be notified second. But, she was in it, too.

It was short notice, but with a few more printing shifts, and the speed of which the money was clearing at Boland Bubbles, together they had the money to make an offer for the store.

* * *

Beth researched, probably more than what was considered due diligence. Since starting at Paper Porcupine, she had spent endless hours on meticulous investigation: combing through tomes on printing presses, Facebook groups for women who were small-business owners, and online forums for print-makers across the world. Her spare minutes were spent perusing Craigslist and eBay for the right model at an accessible price. Beth always had the intention to grow, but on those nights she laid awake listening to Dean snore, she despaired she would ever find her way. When she did sleep, the sounds of the printing press echoed in her dreams.

Beth whipped up binders, that she presented to Ruby and Annie with colorful tabs and notes tucked into the margins. They helped her practice the pitch. Together the three of them refined it, boiled it down, and then she rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed. Beth murmured it to herself in the shower, practiced it in front of the mirror. She revisited the binder and condensed it. She made a vision board and hung it over her bed.

On the day of the meeting with Dorothy's children, Beth turned up to the store with a slim folder. It was something she had trimmed down from all of the research, her hopes, her dreams, her fears, and coalesced it all into a pithy folio -- her offer. The pages were perfumed, the text embossed. Beth had pulled on a smart sheath dress in a vibrant green for the occasion, and she felt -- _powerful_.

With that affirmation in mind, Beth walked proudly into the back hallway of Paper Porcupine. Waiting for her inside the workroom was Miriam, sitting at Lucy’s old desk. She looked calmer, more collected from the last time Beth had seen her. A younger woman about Annie’s age had pulled up a chair at the side of the desk. She introduced herself as Marjorie Vandenberg, Miriam’s sister and Dorothy’s youngest.

The sisters were fashionably dressed in their own way - Miriam in neutral colors and Majorie with a bright pink lip and accents. Both of their faces were round, pale and white, with the same short nose and kind dispositions.

Beth slipped on her mask and began to weave her web.

Over the course of two hours, the women toured the front room, reviewed the inventory of the backspace, all of the printing equipment, and then they stopped to make tea. They talked about the store, and also about themselves. Miriam lived close by in Ann Arbor with her partner and children and spent a lot of her time working at a foundation for the arts. Marjorie had graduated law school last year in Ohio. She had worked at a firm for a few months before she quit. Beth had the sense that she was a little quirky and brilliant. Marjorie spoke about the graphic novel she was working on with a friend and the manuscript she was developing of a romance novel.

Beth liked them both, but luckily, neither of the Vandenberg sisters had the bandwidth to step in to run the store, as much as they didn’t want to see the place go. This was the kernel that Beth needed.

Beth spoke at length about the importance of fostering a space for women and collaborating with local artists as they finished their tea. She impressed Miriam and Marjorie with her knowledge of the press and the functionality of the varieties of paper in stock. Then, she ran them through printing a sheet of Valentine’s Day cards.

With nostalgia, Miriam traces the edges of one of the cards, bringing it to her nose to smell the fresh ink. “Mom was so ecstatic when she found this thing.” She looks at Marjorie, smiling. “Marjie, remember when she and Dad lugged it into the garage?”

“Oh, yeah. She donated all of our old baby things she had been squirreling away to make room for it.” Marjorie shakes her head, her lips twisting fondly at the memory.

“It was the first thing she bought for this place,” Miriam explains to Beth. “She had always wanted to have her own stationery store. When she brought this home, we thought she was having a mid-life crisis.”

Beth smiles, considering her own life. “It happens. It happened to me.”

Marjorie steps closer to the press to run her hand along the different levers. “I can’t believe I never learned how to do this.” She says, solemnly.

“I’m so sorry for your loss." She says empathetically. Beth returns to her thread. "I lost my mother twenty years ago.”

Miriam glances at Beth, shocked. “We have to be the same age.”

“Cancer,” Beth says, the appropriate amount of sobriety coloring her tone. Then, she gestures to the folios and dives in to seal the deal.

“Inside are the details of my offer. I would be honored if you entrust the store to me.”

There was a hush as Majorie and Miriam look at her and then at each other.

Miriam starts first, “Thank you so much for coming in today, Beth. I know you took time outside of your work schedule to prepare and I think you would be a phenom-“

Then, Marjorie interjects, full of nervous energy. “We have another bidder. They’ll come in to meet with us over the next several days. Then, we will make a decision.”

Miriam rolls her eyes and adopts an older-sister sternness that Beth recognizes very well. “Mar _jie_.”

Beth’s pulse races. She is so close she could taste it.

Miriam gestures to Beth. “She is a perfect fit. Mom would have loved for her to have it. She was the person she turned to for help when she was sick.”

Marjorie quickly turns to Beth. “Beth, you’re amazing. I agree you would be a great choice.” Her gaze quickly flicks up and down Beth’s frame, before she turns back to her sister. “But, Mom hadn’t chosen her yet as her new successor and I think we should weigh all of our options -- just in case. The other bidder is offering twice as much.”

“Marjorie.” Miriam pauses, frustrated. “The money is not important here. You cannot run this store. I do not want you to sabotage the selling process.” She turns back to Beth, “I’m sorry-“

Beth looks back and forth between them, running through potential next steps. “It's okay, really. I also have a sister and we disagree about everything.” Marjorie’s words beat like a drum in Beth’s ears. “You mentioned a successor?”

They sober and the mood turns melancholy. “She was someone who used to work at the store. I think you might have overlapped. Lucy Han?

It is like a punch to the gut. Lucy’s memory curls like a vice around Beth’s stomach and Beth can’t ever imagine being done paying for her complicity. Tears prick at the corner of Beth’s eyes. She deflates.

“Oh, no.” Miriam reaches over to pat Beth’s hand. “Now, we’re all crying today.”

"I'm sorry." Beth quickly dots at the corners of her eyes. “That was just so recent.”

“We were so shocked when Mom told us.”

“The store has really had bad luck this past year with Lucy and then Mom…”

Marjorie nods. “Mom never got a chance to update the will. It’s been hard to figure out what the next steps should be.”

Miriam casts an angry glance at her sister. “Except we had already decided to sell. You live in Cleveland. You have a life there. Marjorie, you hate Michigan as you are always reminding me.”

Marjorie squares her jaw and crosses her arms defensively. It’s a stalemate.

Beth looks about the room for something to grasp on to and right her course. But, she can't settle on anything, everything clouded by the feelings strangling her chest. “I understand if you have to take some time to consider. I-” This was supposed to be her moment but, her eyes dart towards the door. Her mind itches to escape. “I look forward to hearing from you about your decision.”

Beth sucks in a shallow breath and pulls herself together long enough to smile and shake their hands. She treads an uneven walk to the minivan, guilt and disappointment pulling at her seams. She sinks into the driver's seat and cries. Eventually, she turns on the car. She drives straight to Ruby's and spends the rest of the day curled up on her couch in quiet devastation. 

* * *

Beth returns to Paper Porcupine the day after the business proposal. It's her day to close. 

Before the shift, Beth puts extra time into curling her hair. She dives deep into her closet and puts on her maroon polka-dot dress. She throws on thermal leggings underneath to protect her from the cold. Her character is on the line and she still has an impression to make. There is still a slim hope of salvaging this situation. The Vandenbergs had said it themselves -- her bid was solid. But, someone else is offering _twice_ her bid? It has to be some sort of developer. Otherwise, who would have that kind of money lying around to swoop in and purchase a stationary story? 

Her shift starts at two. An hour into a slow weekday shift, she sees Rio’s ridiculous overly-tinted, boxy Mercedes pull up outside. Of all days for him to reappear back into her life. But, who is she kidding? She should know better by now. Her gaze darts to the back room. Miriam and Marjorie had already been at the store when she clocked in, and they hadn’t come out yet to say goodbye. As long as they stayed back there, she would be fine. Beth would just ask Rio to meet up at his bar later tonight and really _fuck him_ for choosing now to show his face. He can wait. 

Rio steps inside and Beth does a double-take. Peeking out from under his long coat, she sees one of those cashmere sweaters. The leather of his shoes gleams in spite of the wintry weather outside. She finds herself thinking that he looked good, and it makes her brain short-out for a few seconds. She scrambles, landing on sass. “Well, happy holidays and New Year to _you_.”

Rio pauses just inside the doorway, lingering by the porcupine mural. He visibly takes a breath as he looks her up and down. Then he seals his lips in a firm line and clenches his jaw. Beth remembers what she is wearing and feels a flush catch on her face. She should have never kept this dress. She should have set it to Goodwill. She should have burnt it.

“Yo.”

Beth purses her lips as he stalks closer to her. “Yo, yourself.”

“How you doin’ these days, Elizabeth? Still a good girl?”

Rio really makes it too easy to be mad at him. “If you’re here for the discount holiday items, they’re in the corner.”

“I sent you a card.” He rolls his shoulders as he scans the store.

“You could have called, boss.”

Rio’s gaze comes to rest back on her. His eyes trace the lines of her dress, down to the hem. “What’s the special occasion? A date?”

Beth eyes him with suspicion. “Where were you?”

“Or is this the uniform now?”

“It’s none of your business, but maybe I do have a date.” She doesn’t. She saw the dress in her closet that morning and it reminded her of a time when crime was less complicated. It was a time when she wasn’t complicit in a murder, wasn’t a would-be murderess herself. It had been a moment she had felt powerful and sure in her skin. She clung to the remnants of those feelings to help her be brave in the face of the ghost at the store and the hard shift ahead.

Rio nods and looks away.

“Did you go on vacation again?”

“No.”

So, he was here the whole time. To think she had actually missed him the littlest bit.

“Holidays got busy. My mom always does all these parties for the family. Tamaladas.” Rio seems to volley it to her as if testing the waters. Beth nods and makes a mental note to Google tamaladas later.

“Well, I can’t talk now.” Beth's voice drops to a whisper, and her gaze shifts over to the door to the backroom. “The owners of the store are here.”

“I heard she died.”

Of course, he knows. She narrows her eyes, watching him, “Her family’s here. They’re taking over the business.”

“Okay.” He doesn’t move.

“So things are delicate. I can meet you at the bar later. When I get off work -- like around nine?”

“You see, I’ve actually got a meet.” The eye contact Rio is making right now feels purposeful but Beth has no idea what he's getting at. 

“Then, I can go tomorrow.” 

He purses his lips and does that bobbing motion with his head almost nodding along. She knows he’s trying to be annoying. “I mean right now.”

Beth blinks at him. Her whisper gets a little vicious, “I already told you--“

Then she hears Miriam's voice call out from behind her. As if in slow motion, Beth processes Miriam’s voice saying, “You must be Christopher.” Her voice is warm and welcoming like it had been at the beginning of her meeting with Beth the day before. Beth stares at Rio, her stomach bottoming out.

Rio’s reluctantly looks away from Beth to where she assumes Miriam is standing. He smiles broadly, the epitome of charm. He is so full of shit.

“Miriam? It’s good to meet you.”

Beth feels Miriam touch her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Beth. I didn’t realize you would be here--”

“Yeah, thank you for accommodating the time. My apologies that I had to push it back.” Rio’s talking to Miriam but he’s looking at Beth again. His eyes practically dance with self-satisfaction. “I understand you’ve had other prospects.”

No. No. _No_.

Rio always knows how to manipulate the earth to open up just for him to swallow her whole. It’s his particular brand of magic.

Beth is overwhelmed by the thoughts that flood her head. The first being she should have called him. Why didn’t she call him? The second is _fuck him_. She remembers that in the past she’s wanted to kill him and honestly, why had she ever felt guilty about that? The third thread spirals into _he had no fucking right_.

Rio is still staring at her, most likely reading every one of her thoughts. He is so intuitive when it came to her, their entanglement. He's clairvoyant -- until he’s not.

“Yes, we’ve had other interest…” Miriam starts uneasily, glancing quickly at Beth and very much reading the room.

Rio claps his hands, the sound loud in the store. “Why don’t we get started?”

Beth swallows as she turns to Miriam and plasters on another smile for her. “I’ll be here if you have any questions.”

“Thanks, Beth. I appreciate that. Really.”

Then, Miriam leads Rio to the backroom, and Beth is left alone to stew.

Of course, she eavesdrops. The conversation today moves faster, is more to the point. Rio could spin beautifully when it came to business, but he doesn't put on many airs. He certainly didn’t bring up early loss and cancer, his role as a father, or lessons from managing his ex’s business. Beth is skilled in her own way of layering an argument, but it is wholly different from Rio’s approach. His arguments appeal directly to reason and economy. He knows the appeal of money and he has plenty of it to leverage.

He reiterates his offer -- twice the amount that Beth had offered the day before.

Once that is on the table, she can’t help herself. Beth opens the door and makes a show of gingerly stepping in. “I’m so sorry to interrupt. I'm closing up the front for a minute.” She lays the mantle of motherhood on thick. “I just need to make a quick call. One of my kiddos is sick.”

Beth takes her time walking through the backroom to the hallway leading to the employee entrance. She proceeds into the bathroom, leaves the door unlocked behind her, and waits. In the mirror, she observes that her hair still holds its curl, and color flushes blotchily to her cheeks. She feels the air stagnate oppressively around her as she considers that she’ll never have the independence she longs for, that Rio’s about to best her again. Beth tries to steady herself for the fight that is coming.

Not a minute later the door opens behind her and Rio steps in. Through the mirror, she meets his gaze, heavy with -- something. His eyes dip down the lines of her back to the hem of her dress again. She realizes this was probably a bad idea. She’s not sure if he finally wants to kill her or-

She turns and begins to furiously whisper, “ _What_ are you doing?”

Rio lowers his voice to match her pitch, learning in close, “Oh, my bad. I thought it was clear. I’m buyin’ your little gift store, mama.”

“Why?” Beth is snarling at this point.

“It’s for sale.”

“You knew I put in an offer.”

“Did I?”

She glares at him.

“See, I never got a call or one of those emoji-filled texts you love to send.” Rio steps closer into her space, and she gets right back in his face.

“I built this system. The store is rightfully _mine_.”

“Nu-uh. You ain’t the king.” He shakes his head at her, brusque and patronizing. “You ain’t even paid for this shit yet. This is a lesson you shoulda already learned.” His speech slows, bringing weight to, “You don’t go behind my back.”

It becomes apparent that they’re inches away from each other’s faces. Beth can feel Rio’s breath on her lips, his cologne thick -- that rich earthy scent -- in her nose. She feels drunk. Why is it always like this? In the middle of the moment, she finds herself wondering if she's alone in this, still caught up in the magnetism of their connection. It's ridiculous, she's ridiculous.

“You’re right.” Beth’s mouth is dry. Her throat parched. “We’re partners. I should have told you.”

Beth makes herself pliable and lets the lines in her body soften. She shifts to look at him through her eyelashes. She learned this from him. “I’m not the king.” Beth shakes her head, her mouth achingly close to his. She ignores that. “But, I’m your girl. You could let me have this.”

For a heady moment, Rio licks his lips.

“Nah.”

He steps away and shakes his head. His Adam’s apple bobs and the wings at his throat flutter.

“You see _this_ ain’t yours.”

Beth’s hands curl into fists but he’s already out the door.

-

It takes Beth all of a few seconds to stalk out behind him. By this point, Rio’s rejoined the Vandenberg sisters and resumed his perch by one of the work tables. She stares him down, her mind running through the paces, perusing the avenues of how to discredit him.

“Do you two know each other?” It’s Marjorie who speaks up, as her sister's gaze darts back and forth between Rio and Beth.

“No.”

“Yes.”

An impasse. Rio’s jaw ticks.

And then Beth finds it: her freedom and the way she wins.

Rio cants his head, navigating the uneven footing. “Miss Boland here was the one who introduced me to the store.”

“Oh, _Christopher_.” Beth laughs and moves closer to take his hand in hers. His mouth drops open the smallest smidge. “Sweetie,” She says to dig the dagger in that much deeper. “You are too much. I can’t believe you kept it a secret this long.” Her tone shifts inquisitive, slipping into a role honed by twenty years of marriage to Dean Boland, and envelopes it with the rapport she had built with Marjorie and Miriam the day before. “Is this my Valentine’s Day present? Or-“ She gasps. “Is this for our anniversary?”

Rio looks at her like he can’t decide if she’s batshit or if he wants to stab her. It’s her new favorite look, she decides. The Vandenberg sisters watch on trying to make sense of the scene in front of them.

“Christopher’s my partner.” It isn't an untruth. Beth makes a show of biting at her bottom lip, a tad gleeful. Suddenly the scene is nervy -- she's going to _win_. Is this how he felt that night at the dealership? Her fingers twitch.

To Rio’s credit, he recovers quickly. He gives a little cough. “Darlin’, you know our anniversary ain’t 'til April.”

Oh?

“Y’know, when we met that first time. At the store.” The date of the Fine and Frugal robbery.

Beth blinks at him. It takes a few seconds for her to gather her thoughts.

“We always disagree on what date we should celebrate.” She pinches at Rio’s bicep, _hard_.

“Yeah, she always counts the first date. We went to a bar, couldn’t even make it home-“

The heat rises to Beth’s cheeks, convincingly to be fair, as she plasters a hand to Rio’s mouth. “Don’t start.”

Marjorie calls them outside of their bubble when she laughs. “Y’all are so cute."

Affirmed in her charade, Beth continues, “It was really sweet of you to do this.”

“Oh?” says Rio.

“Helping me buy the store.” Her head is still a few paces back, and it’s true that it’s been almost been two years since she met him. By now she knows most of his tells and she notices him grit his teeth.

“But, we talked about this. I have a plan. I have the money and a solid offer on my own.”

Beth pivots back to the other women as she leans against Rio’s side draping her arm around his shoulders. “My ex-husband was terrible…”

Beth turns to Rio, her gaze infusing with performative warmth. “Chris is so purposeful on being the opposite. But, sweetheart, it’s important that I do this on my own. This is _my_ dream.”

Rio’s mouth constricts into something almost like a smile. Beth knows a gun would already be involved if they were alone. But, they're not and she is delighted.

“Well, you two were our only serious prospects.”, Miriam says and turns to her sister. “I think Beth would take great care of Mom’s store.”

“I know, Mimi. But, it’s just so soon.”

“Marjorie-“

“Mom died a month ago, and we’re already selling the store? This is our inheritance.”

“No.” Miriam empathetically shakes her head. “Our inheritance is our childhood home, full of Mom and Dad’s things. It’s all of our memories with them. We can’t run this store, Marjie. This place was never really intended to be ours. Mom had meant to share it with Lucy.”

The vice from yesterday twists in Beth’s gut and her breath catches in her throat. She tries to power through, but can’t. Rio’s hand snakes around to buoy her at the waist.

Surprisingly, he tags in for the pitch, “Next to Lucy, Elizabeth is the best person you’ll find to take over the store. I’ve never met someone so sharp _and_ meticulous _an_ ’ such a damn nerd about paper density and stickie notes and the fuckin’ quality of ribbons.” He smiles at Beth and smooths back her hair. “You’d be making a mistake not to pick her.” He looks at her as he says it. His gaze is warm, and it’s part of the act but Beth lets herself bask in it. Its aim is duplicitous, but it's also one of the nicest things he's said about her. 

“You could…” Beth starts to continue and then pauses unsure. She wonders at what is the right path. Then she pushes forward, “You could always pop in and check on the store. We would be happy to have you come to visit.”

Rio subtly shakes his head at her. She can feel him tense where she leans against his body.

Marjorie’s disposition shifts and becomes hopeful, as Miriam pragmatically replies, “That’s too much. I would want you both to have full ownership. You’d certainly be paying for it.”

“Mimi-“, her sister interjects.

“Would you prefer that we close the store? Sell it off piece by piece? We _can’t_ run it, Marjorie.” Miriam snaps.

Beth finds the thread again and puts on her most earnest tone, “The Paper Porcupine is a place where women in the Royal Oak community come to celebrate the milestones in their lives. Your mom built its reputation and that is a legacy that I would be proud to protect.”

She feels Rio interlace his fingers with hers. She glances down at him. He’s sitting and despite her height advantage, Beth still feels his exertion of power.

He squeezes her hand. “We both would.”

The sisters exchange a loaded look, heavy with their family history and the grief of their mother’s recent passing.

Miriam speaks first, “Beth, I really think you’re the right person. We would be thrilled to extend you the offer.”

 _Yes_. Yes. Yes.

Rio kisses her shoulder, his thumb rubs at her hip bolstering her as her knees go a little shaky.

Marjorie continues, “I’ve been working with a family friend to navigate the will and Mom’s estate. I can draft up the contract of sale.”

Rio reaches into his pocket and proffers a business card with a neat ‘Z’ embossed on it. “Send it over to my lawyer.”

Beth looks to Marjorie. “Are you sure?”

Rio shakes his head. “Darlin’-“

“As long as you promise me you’ll take the best care of it.” Marjorie’s tone is poignant and Beth thinks of Annie. She thinks of Annie crying when their dad left, when their own mother died, and recently because of Marion, because of Lucy.

Beth reaches across and grabs Marjorie’s hand. “I promise.”

“And you can’t get rid of the porcupine mural.”

“ _Marjorie_.” Miriam laughs, exasperated. She pulls her sister into a hug.

“God, please.” Rio grimaces. “I can’t let Elizabeth commit to that in good faith.”

Beth turns to him, “I like it! It adds character.”

Rio lip curls and she can tell he’s judging her. Then he refocuses, itching to close the deal as he looks at all the other parties in the room. He’s clearly willing this to be over. “So, we have a deal, ladies?”

The Vandenbergs respectively chime in their yes.

A big grin sparks across Beth’s face and she turns to Rio. She realizes that a normal couple would probably kiss right now. The thought seems to occur to him, too.

Beth edges closer to him and extends her arms out. He stands and swallows her up tight in his embrace, dragging her up a bit to rock against him. He’s warm and solid. Begrudgingly she sinks into the sharper lines of his body as he wraps around the softness of hers. She remembers that once (twice) upon a time they had had sex. It was the last time he had been so close. In lieu of a kiss, he twirls her a smidge and the cashmere of his sweater is soft against her cheek. Beth laughs and tries to untangle herself from him. “I need to call the girls.”

“Baby, let’s celebrate.” She sees his gaze dart towards the back hallway. Beth flushes again with what he’s inferring but knows not to take it personally, knows he’s only being very much himself. Besides, any normal couple would celebrate. It's part of the act.

“I still have the rest of my shift.” 

The sisters begin to protest. “You should close up early!” But, Beth deflects, insisting it’s fine and that things that need to get done around the store.

Rio frowns at her, knowing she’s trying to find an escape. Eyeing her meaningfully, he says, “I’ll see you later.” Her hand that he held minutes ago twitches reflexively. She ignores the glow her body is ensconced in. She's alight by this win, feels it everywhere they had touched. She really needs to get laid. By someone else.

Eventually, after all the goodwill and goodbyes, Beth finds herself finally alone. She locks the front door again and surveys the store for a moment. She reaches out her hand to trace the smooth mural of the porcupine and walks along dragging her fingertips along the gift wrapping table. As in a dream, she hooks up her phone to the computer speakers, puts on some music and she dances. She goes back to the printing press, caresses the levers, the handles, the trays--

This was it.

This is what she had been waiting for.

It was clouded of course. She knew Rio was going to get her back for today, and she still had the contract of sale to iron out and wrestle back from Rio and his... attorney. But her fingers tremble as Beth taps along the screen to three-way call Annie and Ruby. When they pick up, she's practically bursting, “Someone needs to bring me champagne!”

Little did she know, the charade wasn’t over yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More dating shenanigans will ensue after a brief pause. Rating will go up for future chapters.
> 
> The warmest thank you to Foxmagpie who fielded my insecurities about this story. Girl, thanks for your help in shaping up this plot and for all your encouragement. 
> 
> Like all writers, I am a glutton for comments. Let me know what you think!


	2. Boundaries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth reflects on winning the bid for Paper Porcupine and Rio swings by to follow up.

The next morning, Beth draws a bath. 

The bathroom in her new apartment is nothing fancy. The fixtures are simple, lower-end—it’s an inexpensive rental but, blessedly, it has a tub. The winter light is bright and reflects off of the walls. The walls themselves are white, tile ascending up the wall to about shoulder height, and accented with a Dubby pink trim that Beth imagines hasn’t been a trend in home renovation since the 1980s. 

The color reminds Beth of her mother’s bathroom growing up. That room had been completely painted and tiled in a similar soft, blushing pink—even the porcelain fixtures. Beth thinks it’s funny looking back—the color had seemed so glamorous and grown-up to her at the time. When Beth was in elementary school she spent many mornings half-napping, cozy in her mother’s blankets, as her mom went through her beauty ritual, applying her makeup and teasing out the volume in her hair. Six-year-old Beth had thought her mother was beautiful enough to be a movie star, the romantic lead in the story of their household. Compacts of rouge and bronzer, eyeshadow palettes, and tubes of mascara could always be found sprawled across the vanity. Beth wasn’t allowed to touch them, even when her stubby fingers itched to put them in order, tidy and upright. Everything in that bathroom was off-limits—most of all, her mother’s medicine cabinet. 

As a child, younger than her Jane was now, she carefully followed her mother’s rules, clamping down on her natural playfulness and creativity as not to bother her mother (and her father, when he was there). That particular time in her childhood wasn’t ideal, but it was still better than what happened after Annie was born. Years later, the memories come to her now and again, and here in her new home, her new life Beth has to tuck them away. 

The sound of the running faucet is loud in the room. It soothes her headache. As the water fills the tub, she replenishes her cotton ball and q-tip holders, puts away a rogue tube of lipstick in its proper place. Then, she pulls out a fresh, clean towel, placing it on a hook she installed by the tub. The heat fogs up the mirror on a chilly morning and opens her pores. 

Beth eases into the tub and tries to sweat out the alcohol from the evening before. Celebrating the store, the outright ownership of the printing press (soon!), had turned into a fun night with the girls.

Annie had shown up at Beth’s door with three bottles of the good champagne—and a bottle of André. 

“One for each of us! And a _spare_!”

Ruby had brought the fancy snacks and grapefruit juice to mix in with their drinks. “Clearly, I’m the class in this friendship.” There was a pointed glance at Annie, who glowered back at Ruby, crunching loudly on the large cracker she had popped in her mouth and was now fighting to swallow. 

And Beth — Beth had brought her joy. With the thrill of the win, the delight of greater independence and financial prosperity almost within her grasp—she had whipped up a quick, airy sponge cake. Together with the girls crowded in her kitchen, she frosted it as Annie continued to top off Beth’s glass. Freshly topped with a heaping pile of nimbly cut strawberries, she added her cake next to Ruby’s charcuterie spread and the champagne. When Beth really let herself feel it, it was like she was bursting at her seams. 

Beth reclines in the tub, relishing in her soak, as she revisits how they hugged, they toasted (a few times), and they spent the evening talking big plans, big hopes, and big dreams. The energy was high, and even before the fizzy alcohol, Beth felt like she was floating. It left her mostly able to ignore the incoming calls buzzing at her thigh. 

Rio didn’t leave her any voicemails but, eventually, a text came through. It was short, as they always were from him. This one was just two emojis (not like him, more like her), the diamond ring, and a red heart, followed by a question mark. Dread at what she had gotten herself into began to edge in on her consciousness, but she pushed it down. Beth knew there was a battle to face soon enough. But _for now_ , she wasn’t going to dignify him with a response because after his (latest) betrayal, he could wait. For a moment her body tensed thinking about how he made her play the audience to his devastating performance. She thinks of his profound entitlement in swooping in after two months of radio silence to outbid her on the store, _her_ business. So, really— _fuck_ _him_. 

Instead, Beth polished off her drink, turned off her phone, and let it sink between the sofa cushions. It disappeared from her sight and her thoughts, as she rallied the group onwards to the André. 

They continued drinking, laughing, and so what if Beth left out the details of Rio’s involvement in the deal? She wasn’t ready to think about it, much less begin to process it. She needed _this_ —to have this win, to keep it simple for a minute—and by this point, Beth was skilled at dodging the subject of Rio. 

Normally, the trio avoided conversation about him at all. Beth had decided that was the natural way of things after everything that had happened between them and their boss. They never mentioned him by name. However, in her honest moments, Beth supposes the silence on this subject was also in respect for her and her former… whatever it was. After all, Ruby and Annie rarely brought up Dean, and that silence was now transposed to Rio— not that they were the same, obviously, Dean had been her _husband_ , and at most Rio had been her... boss. He had made that abundantly clear _again_ when he disappeared on her last November. But, it was Annie, drunk and a little fuzzier around the edges, who eventually asked, “So, when are you going to break the news to Gangfriend?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Beth could see the motion of Ruby shaking her head at Annie. 

“Soon.”

Naturally, alone and terribly sober the next morning, her first thoughts had been about the god-awful pulse of her headache—and of him. As she reflected on the copious amounts of champagne and sugar she had ingested the day before, fielding some inner-monologue about whether that had been truly necessary, thoughts lurked underneath about how _good_ Rio had looked wearing one of those stupid cashmere sweaters she had been so curious about for so long. The neutral gray had brought out the brown of his skin and the dark brown of his eyes.The neckline had almost too neatly framed the bird at his neck. Ex-business partners should never be allowed to look so good. She had groaned, pressing her palms to her eyes, her forehead, trying to shut it all back out. Eventually, after some languishing, Beth had stumbled to her medicine cabinet and run the bath. 

Now, buoyant and weightless in the water, she relishes in the quiet of her apartment and begins to consider the intimate inches of herself that she overlooks in her day-to-day routine. She adjusts so that her fingertips can travel along her limbs without too much splashing. 

Beth’s body is made up of the same softness that had bloomed with each pregnancy. In her 40s, her skin is still the same freckled pale white (currently flushed by the bath). She knows her eyes to be blue and she likes their color, vibrant against the pearliness of her face and the delicate yellow of her hair. In the past few years, she’s fielded too many remarks from other mothers about the fine lines around her eyes, assurances about injectables, and comments from her ex-husband. In defiance (with validation from Ruby and Annie, and one unforgettable business pitch with Rio along the way) she has decided she likes the signs of her age. 

Beth traces her hands along her calves, examines the veins at her wrist, pinches the fat at her belly. It is the same old her, same old body, same old self. However, _today_ she owns a business. Someday soon Paper Porcupine will be in her name, and her name only. 

There is some (perhaps _a lot_ ) of tightness in her chest, some residual stiffness in her limbs, about the path forward. But, at least there is no longer a Dean Boland to take her credit. She will be another step closer to building something with the counterfeit money and, with the store in her name, Rio won’t ever be able to easily cut her out in a snit. 

Her lips curve into a smile. 

Beth slides low into the tub, letting her limbs fully submerge in the hot water. 

Her thoughts drift back to Rio. 

With only herself for company, Beth relinquishes a little of her control. 

The bath is warm like Rio’s arms had been the afternoon before. That hug had been a (painful) suggestion of what they could never be. It makes her think of the softness of that _other_ day, the one a year ago at this point—the afternoon in her marriage bed. What had been one last time, _the_ last time, was meant to replicate the heady eroticism of the bar bathroom, the most electric orgasm she’d ever had in her life, to say goodbye, to burn it out of her system. But, the second time had been something different entirely. It had been… tender. _Romantic_. Maybe that was taking it a little too far. In what world would they have ever— 

She wonders if it’s all in her head. She wonders how this kernel of want is so absurdly stubborn, how it manages to resurface, haunt her after so much harm. Beth thinks on the seer of heat in the bathroom at Paper Porcupine as Rio promised to best her, the look on his face minutes later when he realized she was outmaneuvering him again and _how_. 

Beth knows she will face the consequences of that later. For now, her fingers drift between her legs, to her clit. The warmth of the water feels good there, too, and she lets her mind wander. 

— 

It is a few days before Marjorie turns back up at the store. 

Her sister had already reached out to Beth to outline the next steps. When Miriam had called, Beth’s palms had been clammy around her phone, her heartbeat fast in her chest, loud in her ears, as they made their way through typical pleasantries. When Miriam had said she would honor the original offer, Beth had rocked her gaze skyward, biting her lip to keep her previous nervousness from bubbling up in a laugh. Often it felt like things never went in Beth’s favor, and she was so thankful to not have to own up to Rio’s outrageous bid. 

At this point in the process, it was typical for the seller to give the prospective buyer as many as four months to monitor the financials of the business. It was a precautionary measure so that the buyer could feel sure everything was as it seemed before proceeding with the sale. Beth, already plenty intimate with the bookkeeping at the Paper Porcupine and eager for the press to be hers, responded to Miriam asserting she was comfortable moving forward with the purchase. The next step was for Marjorie to draft the contract of sale, a step she was insisting on handling herself as a licensed attorney, albeit an attorney-turned-novelist. 

When Beth walks into the backroom for the start of her shift, she’s stuck by the sight of the printing press. The pride of new ownership bubbles up, swelling in her throat. She hears voices filtering in from the front and is not surprised to pick out Marjorie’s voice, but unease cords through Beth’s body nonetheless. Her eyes zero in on an unfamiliar purse, chic, the color of a carnation, on one of the work tables. For a second, she curses herself in having welcomed Marjorie’s presence at the store. 

Beth does her best to breathe as she tucks her evening snack in the fridge, and nabs her apron. She makes her way over to the front room, pausing in the door frame. Beth spots Marjorie behind the counter ringing up a purchase, as Laura, Beth’s coworker on the mid-shift, meets with a customer to take a print order. Marjorie is dressed more casually today in dark pants and a pullover in that deep goldenrod color that had come into fashion over the past year or two. Her hair, long and dark, is down over her shoulders. 

The transaction doesn’t drag on too long, but she can see that Marjorie is flustered, a line etched between her brows as she pokes at the tablet. Beth, a nurturer (Annie would say a control freak) by nature, puts these inclinations aside and stands back. She turns instead to find merchandise to organize around the store. She wants the moment’s clumsiness to land like an omen— _this is not yours_.  


Marjorie shifts her weight back and forth on her feet. Her hands abandon the tablet to fiddle at the end of one of the sleeves of her sweater, her eyes scanning the tablet for the option she needs. After her second “It’ll just be a minute”, Laura walks over to help. She gets Marjorie onto the correct screen and explains the abbreviations of the point of sale. Marjorie makes it through the rest of the transaction unscathed, and her mood shifts triumphant. She smiles sunnily at the customer, and thanks them for their patience. Beth had never been particularly close to the Vandenberg’s matriarch, but there’s something in Majorie’s resolute stance at the register that echoes her mother. 

Beth suddenly realizes how uncharitable she’s being to this person who is bereaved. Marjorie isn’t here to renege on the sale—she’s here because she’s grieving. She wants to feel closer to her _mother_. 

Beth takes another long, steadying breath, and then shoots her a thumbs up. Marjorie smiles back, mouths a “hi”. A beat passes, and their gazes both shift over to Laura and the customer she’s resumed working with. Marjorie seems to contemplate something, tugs again at a thread at the cuff of her sleeve, then decisively walks away from the register. She disappears into the back room and quickly returns with one of the tall stools. “Is it alright if I shadow you today?”

A siren sounds in Beth’s head. It’s _a test, a test, a test._ But, Beth knows that it’s not really that. She barely knows Marjorie, but she notices how it takes a beat for Marjorie to smile, like it’s hard and there’s intention behind the social grace. Beth recognizes grief. It’s a blurring of boundaries, and she remembers Rio shaking his head at her as Beth extended the opportunity to visit and keep in touch. After all, it’s only a few more weeks until the sale goes through.

“Of course.”

A little while later, Laura wraps up her shift and heads out for the day. The afternoon speeds by at first with the stay-at-home parents creating a steady flow of work for Beth with Marjorie by her side. Later the pace segues into the after-five rush with customers stepping in on their way home to purchase gifts for coworkers, family members, and loved ones. Beth meticulously performs her role as Paper Porcupine caretaker, showing off her mastery of the store’s inventory and the endless variety of custom printing options. Marjorie is happy enough to let Beth do most of the talking, observing and helping Beth snag what she needs. 

In between customers, they make small talk, and Beth finds herself admiring Marjorie’s warm, funny comments. Beth hadn’t met anyone who wasn’t also a parent in too long and it’s a reprieve, not having to navigate the mundane pleasantries about school choice or the repetitive conversations on children’s extracurriculars, the token frustrations. 

Throughout the course of the afternoon, Beth wonders what Marjorie sees when she looks around the store. She wonders how it reminds Marjorie of her mother. The store has always been a little precious, and Beth _loves_ a good craft store but Paper Porcupine teeters on the verge of clutter. She eyes the large doily dressing the display table in the middle of the showroom. She has the thought that she will finally be able to throw it out. Then she feels a little guilty, a little selfish. Would Marjorie mind? Would Majorie want to keep it? Is it too soon to banish the doily? The store decor is hardly a priority in the scheme of the real money she’s making but she realizes that soon… she’ll have complete autonomy over it. The emotion of that thrums heady in her veins. 

Around seven, the store hits a lull. Marjorie yawns, stretching her arms high into the air. “It’s so quiet now.”

“It’ll be this way until close,” Beth says with experience. “The beginning of the week is always slow. Your mom used Mondays as her admin day.” She rubs at the kink that’s just made itself apparent in her neck and thinks longingly of her yogurt tucked way in the fridge. She only has one, though, and she doesn’t want to be rude. She wonders if Marjorie will stay until close. The afternoon has been surprisingly pleasant, but exhaustion pulls at her at the thought of having to stay on her toes for an hour longer. At least it wasn’t a printing night. 

“Thank you.“ 

Beth turns to find Marjorie eyeing her meaningfully. 

“I had wanted to drop in earlier and say hello, but then…” Marjorie chuckles, something somber laced through the sound. “I didn’t want to leave. This afternoon has been amazing—just what I needed.”

Beth’s mental red flag raises, alert as always to the innocently-framed power struggles between women, thinks ‘ _this is the moment I’ve been bracing myself for when she tries to take it back—_ ’ then Marjorie continues, “I love my sister but I’ve spent so much time in Detroit the last few months with everything with Mom.” She wraps her arms around herself in a self-soothing gesture. “Mimi’s driving me nuts.” Marjorie looks over her shoulder towards the door as if half expecting Miriam to have walked in and overheard. 

Beth feels the tension unknot itself from her shoulders. “I get it. I can’t even imagine living with my sister for a week.” 

“It’s _so_ much.” Marjorie’s frustration comes spilling out. “My friends from high school moved away, _all_ of them, and there’s nothing to do besides spend time with Mimi. And she keeps treating me like one of her _kids_. She took off all this time from work—and she keeps doing my laundry— she _cleans my room_ when I’m out. She’s not letting me chip in for groceries, won’t let me cook. She’s in full mom mode but she’s not— _Mom_.”

Marjorie shudders and Beth wonders if this is how Annie feels about their relationship. “That’s really hard.” She sits in a little discomfort, unsure of what to offer Marjorie, as the person often in Miriam’s position. 

“I could move into our parents’ house but that would be too weird. I mean, we grew up there—I _love_ that house. But, it’s so empty now. It’s not the same.”

Beth thinks first of her recent move. Her former home with Dean, always her surest domain, now felt like set dressing, definitively _not hers_. Then, older memories surface. She remembers being in her teens and her mother unable to get out of bed, then dying, then gone. 

At the end of their mom’s life, Beth and Annie had basically moved out and been living at Ruby’s house. Returning to that place that no longer felt like home, to pick out the clothes her mother would be buried in had been an out-of-body experience. The house had been a cheerless place for years, but that day it had felt particularly dark, abandoned. Beth hadn’t wanted to linger but it took so damn long to find a nice set of matching earrings in her mother’s jewelry boxes—all of the good stuff already pawned. It was such a long time ago, but suddenly that gloom is present with Beth this evening, and it’s tender.

“I know what that’s like.”

“You’ve lost your parents, too, right?”

“Yeah.” Beth lets her own nicey-nice, safe suburban talk slide, and just… allows herself to remember. “My mom got sick while I was in high school. She was in and out of the hospital for a while.” The sickly smell of that room floods her suddenly. “And then hospice.”

Marjorie sighs. “Oh, I know how that goes.”

“Houses are different when you’re waiting for them to come back home. It’s a whole new experience once that person is gone.” 

“Your mom—what was her name?” Majorie smiles at Beth soft, open, _vulnerable_. Marjorie’s pain was so fresh but she already had so many words to talk about her family. 

Beth blinks, and her mother’s name catches in her throat. She hasn’t said it in _so_ long, not to Dean, not to Ruby, not to _Annie_ in forever and feelings decades old are making themselves felt again in her chest. Emotional abandonment, neglect, the pressure to transition from parentified older sibling to a caretaker for her dying mother, are things that she tries to never think about. She forces herself to gloss over these wounds when reminded of her childhood, but it informs her every decision as a parent herself, still shapes the way Beth walks through the world. 

She releases some of that weight in a hoarse whisper. “Barbara.”

Marjorie’s hand comes out to squeeze Beth’s arm, and the warmth of her palm feels like a kindness. “Barbara Marks.” She sounds it out with intention. “Beth Marks. If you don’t mind me saying, Marks is such a badass last name.” 

Beth smiles at the comment. It does feel good to have it said aloud again. It is a call back to an era before she was Bethie or Mrs. Boland. The last time she was Beth Marks she was so _young_ , just a few years older than Kenny is now. The name leaves her unmoored for a few seconds.

A possibility rises to the tip of Beth’s tongue, ready to be set loose, “ _Eliza_ beth Marks.” 

“Oh!”, Marjorie exclaims, apologetic. “I didn’t realize—” 

“It’s okay. I’m only just going back to my maiden name, for the first time in—” she takes a breath as it sinks in, “—years. Marks was never really my mother’s name though. She wasn’t married for very long. For everything that mattered, it was Barbara Becker.” 

“A lovely name,” Marjorie says, gently. 

“So was your mother’s,” Beth says, trying to offer Marjorie something in return. “Dorothy Vandenberg.” She sounds it out as an invocation to mothers holding purchase on their daughters’ lives from beyond the grave. The images and feelings of when Beth herself was a daughter hold fast to her for a beat, and then she seals them back up.

Marjorie eyes her side-long. “And us without anything to toast with.”

Beth laughs. “I actually live close by,” she says, wry. “—and I _would_ offer, but all I have is bourbon.”

Marjorie does a double-take. “ _Damn_. I pegged you as one of those wine mom types. We should hang out. You can be my new friend I visit in Detroit. Maybe you and your boo can invite me over for Old Fashioneds and I can meet all your cool friends.” 

Beth considers introducing Marjorie to Ruby, to _Annie_ (they absolutely would hit it off) in some perfect, ideal world. But, the last time there was an introduction that carried any weight—it was Rhea. Or was it Lucy? If Beth did befriend Majorie, would they think she was… in the wrong? But, she had already won the bid for the store, there was nothing bad about this, right? Except… Marjorie thinks Beth is dating— and presumably, she’d have to tell Ruby and Annie about that. Beth shakes off this line of thought and moves on to consider the other people in her life. None of the PTA crowd would do obviously. Then, she stalls. 

She doesn’t have very many friends these days because of all the time she spends working, trying to turn a profit despite Rio taking the cream. Amused, Beth thinks to herself that it’s not like she can introduce Marjorie to _Mick_. But, maybe if she introduced him as Rio’s best friend… A quiet and stoic person by trade, she cannot imagine Mick playing into Beth’s tale with grace. 

Memories of park benches with Rio from the year before suddenly invade her thoughts. She might have called _him_ a friend once. Who is she kidding? Might have? She absolutely thought they were friend _ly_ , that they were better before he straight up vanished into the ether in November— and that’s all it really takes for the intimacy of her conversation with Marjorie to short out and for Beth’s mask to snap back into place. She remembers the stupid, _stupid_ lie. 

“So you’re using your maiden name?” Marjorie playfully quirks an eyebrow. “Can I ask—did that have something to do with your guy?”

Beth pauses, realizing she needs to tread carefully here. “It was time,” she says. She hopes it passes for coy. 

“So, you dating all that man has _nothing_ to do with it?” Beth can’t help it. She laughs again at Marjorie’s candor, but this alternate universe she’s landed in where she is Rio’s girlfriend is… something else. 

“It’s Chris, right?”

Beth blinks, caught in rapid-fire speculation on his name _again_. Is Christopher just another alias? People don’t actually name their children after rivers or cities in Brazil, right? For the millionth time, she _wonders_. She wonders what “Rio” means, where the name was born. She wonders at his audacity in renaming her, full-naming her when he already had his dossier and plenty of interactions with Ruby and Annie to confirm that _no one_ called her Elizabeth. She wonders at his audacity in saying his name for her boldly, _with intention_ , when he’s never even fucking introduced himself to her. 

She realizes that this moment is an opportunity for _her_ to choose. 

“Christopher, actually.” Her airiness slips and it comes out weighty, poignant.

Marjorie blinks at the transparent emotion she picks up in Beth’s voice. She bites her lip, seeming to deliberate something, then says, “…I’m trying to flesh out the story I’m working on. It’s a romance, and I’ve been asking all the happily-coupled people I know the cheesiest things.” Marjorie eyes Beth, her gaze brimming with interest. “Would it be okay if I asked you a little bit about Christopher?”

The alarms resume ringing in Beth’s head.

“Well, I mean, we haven’t been dating _that_ long.” She grits her teeth as she remembers that she hinted that their anniversary was coming up soon. Beth has to admit using that as her opening to snag the bid from Rio was a little nuts. She wonders what kind of boyfriend would buy their partner a store for their first-year anniversary? Or a second-year anniversary? _Any_ anniversary? How long had they been fake dating anyway? She cringes at what she got herself into—then, she considers (again) how much money Rio must have and wonders (again) what kind of gifts he gives (if he were trying to be nice, if he were actually trying to show that he cares)… 

“That’s okay! And I’m sorry if I’m way out of my lane here, but you and Christopher—you know how when you look at a couple and they just _fit?_ ”

Beth has only ever been incredibly self-conscious about how out of place she and Rio must look next to each other. She never entertained a world where she looked good next to him, _complemented_ him. The possibility is stunning. 

“That’s really sweet of you to say. I—”  This new idea, the possibility of it being true, reverberates deeply in her chest. She softens. “What questions do you have?”

“Well, how long have you two been together?”

The image of Rio waiting for her in her kitchen, playing the big, scary boss, is immediate. He had said their anniversary was the robbery, definitely in an effort to throw her off. Unsure of how to play it off now, Beth settles for vague, “We met a couple of years ago.”

“And you guys met at a… _grocery store,_ right?”

Beth flusters. “That’s just what he likes to say.”

Marjorie waits for Beth to continue as one would normally in this situation, and seems to take pity when she realizes Beth’s cheeks are glowing a bright pink.

“So you’re using your maiden name,” Marjorie continues to probe in the most friendly and stressful manner. “And he’s trying to casually lock down your dream job for you?!”

“He’s—” Beth falters. “He’s very... attentive.” 

By this point, Marjorie’s gushing, “Who does that? Normally, this would activate my misandrist commentary—I mean, if my partner was going to be throwing around that kind of money, I’d definitely want to have a conversation about it first—”

“Oh—believe me. Me, too.” 

“—But it was just… weirdly cute. And the way he looks at you? Can you imagine if he actually was able to surprise you with it?” 

“I would have died.” Perhaps that’s too on the mark? “But I don’t think he would have been able to get away with it.” 

“Let me guess. His love language has to be gifts right?” 

Beth looks at Marjorie, confused, a little curious. “Love language?” She remembers walking in on Ruby and Annie in a heated debate about Stan one night in the back room. It was something that didn’t make a whole lot of sense—something about gifts, too? Beth had been sleep-deprived, churning her to-do list in her head, and forgot to follow-up. 

“Sorry!” Marjorie laughs. She pulls out her phone and starts to pull something up. “I’m deep into research for the plot. Looking up all the self-help relationship advice has been a total trip. So there are five love languages, and they’re the different ways we show love and receive it…” She hands her phone to Beth. Beth scans the article, skeptically at first, and then she gets to a section on acts of service and suddenly feels all too seen. 

“So, Christopher is totally gifts, right?”

The comment is innocent, but the irony of all the terrible gifts between them—fingers, toes, FBI agents, rotten eggs—makes Beth laugh. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Do you have to rein him in a lot?”

Beth chuckles, dryly. “Oh, definitely.” 

Marjorie smiles back. The double-meaning is definitely lost on someone who doesn’t know her dynamic with Rio. She’s excited to tell Ruby and Annie later… that is, once she finally figures out how to tell them about Rio’s involvement in the sale at all. 

“What about you? How do you like to receive love? It’s not gifts, right?”

Beth examines the list. She thinks on the things that were lacking most with Dean, and what feels—felt so good in that fever-haze of flirtation with Rio. She considers what it would be like if a romantic partner were to show her that they cared. 

“Acts of service.” She purses her lips considering, “and words of affirmation.” 

“I’m _all_ about words of affirmation. There’s a whole book on this stuff if you’re interested, and way too many accounts on the ‘gram dedicated to over-explaining them. It’s all a little ridiculous and I question if all of this information is truly helpful but, hey, at least it’s fun.”

“It sounds more fun than the last thing I read.” Beth thinks of the tomes of instructionals on print-making and press operation that sit by her bed. She can’t remember the last time she read something that wasn’t related to work, or, god, the last time she read _fiction_. 

Beth tries to shift the conversation away from her, and away from her and Rio. “So, are _you_ seeing anyone?”

“Ugh.” Marjorie shudders. “My last relationship was not great. I was in law school, and overworked and exhausted and let shitty behavior go on for far too long. I ended up breaking up with him the semester before I graduated. It was terrifying but ultimately a great decision. I’m over putting up with shitty men. ”

Beth thinks of Dean. She tries not to feel shame when she thinks about how long it took her to walk away from her marriage because the point is she _did_ , and every day this month she’s woken up feeling utter relief. “Good for you.”

Interest piqued, Marjorie asks, “You’ve been married before and you have kids. What made you really want to pursue things with Christopher?” She jiggles her shoulders playfully. 

Beth feels the pressure at Marjorie’s own personal admission pushing at her. Finally, the tale starts to take shape, as she finds a way to spin the truth. 

“It was rocky at the beginning.” Then she amends, “It was rocky for _a while_. I was married—not happily, but. Married. That fell apart and it took a long time for us to get together. But, he was very persistent, charming.” Beth thinks of all the meetings of them alone—at the cafes, at the parks, at her house—the feel of his eyes tracing the length of her body all those times. In retrospect, she knows what she had internalized the drops as—dates. How naive. 

Marjorie looks at her knowingly. “ _Very_ charming.”

“He can lay it on thick,” Beth says, scoffing a bit. “It was exciting at first, and my marriage was in shambles but it still wasn’t enough—I wasn’t ready.” She remembers meeting Marcus for the first time when she didn’t even know his name. Parenting, the most significant distance she had manufactured between her and Rio was quickly bridged, and it all swiftly complicated itself after then. “But, the more I knew of him, the more I liked.”

“Did you guys always have such amazing chemistry?”

Beth decides to be honest with Marjorie and with herself. “Yes.”

It’s infused with pride she has only rarely let herself indulge in since the day Rio put that beautiful woman on display making her spiral in shame and humiliation, endlessly comparing. She had gone home after that and stared hard into the mirror noting every wrinkle, every place she had taken on weight, every blemish—and it had been crushing. Somehow, it landed differently, sharper than Dean’s infidelities. And it had made her furious.

These days, however, Beth knows how he lives. Hypothetically, at least. Obviously he moved. But, she knows that Rio lives _alone_. She also knows that he continues to pop up, and to work with her and make her life miserable. She knows the way he looks at her with all of her body exposed to him in the stark light of day. She knows that sometimes, despite himself, he likes her. He likes her enough that they had a seedling of friendship last Fall before he shut it down. She knows that they might not have much, but they have _always_ had chemistry. 

Somehow it’s easier for her to say these things to someone who is more or less a stranger. Ruby knows Beth like a favorite song, and Annie has been a spectator to Beth’s whole life, but there is specific freedom to being able to articulate something to someone who has no context, to have full reign in crafting the story. 

A call comes through on Marjorie’s phone, interrupting their conversation. Marjorie groans. It’s Miriam asking about dinner.

“I’ve got to get going. I’m going to be late—and who knows, she might finally ground me.” Marjorie sighs, rolling her eyes. “But, maybe you could join us soon? Save me? It’ll be fun. My sister is nice and considerate of other people, you know, people who aren’t her sister. I _promise_. And she likes you.” She bounds off of her stool, tucking her phone into her pocket. “We could do dinner, drink some wine—or _bourbon_. Maybe Mimi will even let me have control of the grocery list. It will be a _wild_ time.”

Beth considers her own phone, sitting in the other room with calls unanswered and that stupid text. She’ll think of an excuse to get them out of the dinner later. For now, she plasters on a big smile. “I would love that.” 

——

Once alone, Beth beelines for her yogurt. She has a hunger cramp and she’s salivating at the thought of her snack. She makes it to the backroom, her fingers just reaching out to grab the handle of the mini-fridge when she hears the bell on the shop door. Of course.

Sometime in the past two years, after Amber—all the Ambers—the fake cancer, the financial insecurity, the crime mishaps, the bodies, the body parts, the shootings, Beth started keeping a bad luck tally in her head. She can concede that this isn’t quite on the level of having her crime boss shoot her ex-husband, but maybe it’s a half-point? She steels herself in years of cultivated patience and calls out a friendly, “Be right with you!” 

She returns, yogurt in hand, to find Rio perched on the tall seat that Marjorie had left behind. He’s back in all black—black peacoat, black jeans, black Chucks (does the gray sweater from the time before really count as a remarkable deviation from this?). As always, he bears the casual elegance of someone who thinks he owns the world around him. It’s arresting and infuriating and for the umpteenth time she feels angry at how attracted she is to his particular, obnoxious brand of masculinity. 

It was never like this with Dean. He was a lovable goofball once, still had that pull about him to women who weren’t her. But, there wasn’t a graceful bone in his body.

What happened with Rio was so, _so_ complicated, but it was also easily summarized as a cliché. Good girl wants bad boy. Suburban cougar seduces younger man. But, she was no longer good, and it wasn’t clear who seduced who. They were both crooked and intimately, intuitively, it had felt like they were the same. 

For the most part, Beth has buried those thoughts deep inside. Were they treasures to be hidden because of how much they make her heart bloom or to be submerged like all the other traumas she’s been forced to eat? She can’t be sure. Even now, most nights the gunshots between them echo in her sleep. Even now, she can immediately recall the precise brown of his eyes, another one of her own impractical superpowers. 

These past few months, she had been so diligent, never missing a drop, never missing a meet, never missing a day at the park until he stopped showing up for _her_. 

What were they now? Employee and boss? No. Apparently, fake significant others.

At least he doesn’t look mad. 

She reminds herself that his looks can be deceiving. 

As she approaches him, walking up on the other side of the register table, she puts on a show of eyeing him warily. This could quickly turn combative, but she refuses to feel embarrassed by her lie. He gave her no choice.

Rio easily meets her gaze, and the table hardly feels like a barrier between them. She’s not sure what’s on her face, what tangent he’s caught, but he’s always ready to wrestle his way to the top. 

“Hey, girlfriend.”

It’s dripping with charm, but his sass lands too close to a blow. Luckily, Beth is well-trained by years of service to Dean. She puts on the adoring Stepford beam and shifts her voice into a lower register, breathy, somewhat mindless, and volleys back to him. “Hi, _honey_. You know your cut isn’t ready yet.” 

Beth’s smile shifts sharp and genuine as Rio adjusts his perch on the stool. He frowns at her. Another favorite running tally shuffles forward. One point to Beth. 

“It ain’t due. Where you been?”

Her gaze darts around the store. “Here.”

He pauses, clearly waiting for her to continue. But, she won’t. Point number two?

“Why haven’t you been picking up your phone?”

Beth very pointedly opens her yogurt. The lid pops as she peels it away from the rim. It’s loud and easily heard over the playlist playing off the speaker in the corner. She brings the lid to her lips to lick the yogurt that’s gotten stuck to the top. She’ll probably regret it, but fuck him, really. She’s starving. Her snack is tart, and delicious in the way hunger makes everything taste rich. 

Beth looks up and catches Rio’s eyes trained to her mouth. He looks away as he shifts on his seat, again. _Three_ points?! It never goes like this. 

“You mean all the emojis you sent?” She mimes drawing a heart for the kind of petty emphasis she knows he’ll appreciate.

“I sent you one damn text.”

Beth takes this moment to spoon an individual blueberry out of the yogurt. Pops it into her mouth. It’s sweet and she’s glad she bought them at the store—the first time in years she had bought them just for her. “I’m not sure what you expect me to say here. You tried to steal my store.”

“ _My_ store,” Rio growls, and she raises her hackles right back.

Beth gestures widely with her spoon at the room around them. “No, my store. _I_ won the bid.”

“With _my_ money.” 

“ _My_ money,” Beth gloats, practically humming. She takes another spoonful of yogurt, makes herself focus on the taste of it again. This time she picks up notes of sweetness interlaced with the sour. She lets him wait. “They accepted my original bid.”

Rio grits his teeth, rocks his jaw a bit. Beth loves when that happens. “That don’t mean all this is yours. The business still runs through me.”

Beth’s already speaking over him, a touch too cocky, not listening to what he said. “And you know what? Even after you stuck your nose in it, _I_ _closed the deal_.”

Rio scoffs. “Darlin’, you didn’t close shit until I showed up.”

“Because you interfered! I had a perfectly reasonable offer that they would have immediately accepted if you hadn’t thrown all that money around—”

“I was protecting our interests—”

“ _Our_ interests? Spare me, boss.” Beth sneers. “When have you ever cared about our partnership?” 

Rio’s fingers are twitching and she takes pleasure at his tells. He’s pissed and that’s what he gets. 

“You didn’t call me. You ain’t ever do that unless something’s gone to shit.” Rio remarks, bitterly. “Why didn’t I hear about this from you?”

“I—“ She knows how he must see her—still green, a pawn to be pushed around. She’s sure he doesn’t really care—not in any personal, meaningful way. But, she _had_ thought to call him—remembers making the conscious decision not to, ascribing it to stalwartness in seeking her independence, looking for a pathway without his help…. and perhaps knowing it would make him mad. “I wanted to.” It comes out weak, but it’s true. Beth sees him register it. The honesty diffuses something between them—and underneath her fury at his underhandedness of trying to buy the store, she’s hurt. “But, who knows where you have been.” 

Rio opens his mouth like he’s considering saying something. Beth remembers his comment about tamaladas from before and her subsequent internet research into Mexican-American Christmas traditions. She rolls her eyes, “Besides partying with your family, apparently.”

He can’t help it—he laughs. But he bites it down quickly. 

A beat passes as they eye each other. His lip twitches again with swallowed laughter. There was a time when he wouldn’t have let her see that, and her body responds, relaxing a smidge. Rio notices that, too. She pries out another blueberry as he all but bats hisindecentlylong eyelashes. Then he says, maybe fond, “I missed you, ma.”

Beth scoffs.

“For real.”

Beth feels a rush of -- _something_. But, she tamps it down because he was the one who chose to withdraw last Fall. When she was doing everything right he abandoned her (again). She thinks of what Rhea said one time, that he always pops back up. She realizes bitterly that this isn’t just her, he does this to his own kid, but it _sucked_. 

“Yes, well you’ve always liked me best when I’m essentially giving you a small fortune every two weeks, doing everything for nothing in return,” Beth says, pursing her lips around the spoon as she takes another bite. 

She can see Rio deliberate on whether to chew her out on his whole pecking order bullshit but, ultimately he lets it go. “I did try to buy the store for you, darlin’.”

Now, Beth can’t help it—she’s laughing, too. She hates him mostly, but sometimes she can admit, he… thrills her. Maybe thrill is too strong a word. 

“Don’t even try to spin it like that. You just want to make sure you come out on top.”

Rio pivots, adjusting on the stool. He reaches out to twirl one of the heart tassel keychains that they keep at the register to entice customers into a last-minute addition to their purchase. “Y’know, I haven’t even been to your new apartment yet.”

It’s a digression, a diversion, she’s sure. But it’s amicable and their rapport from before the holidays beckons to her like a warm invitation, a relief. She wants to pretend like his radio silence didn’t hurt her, wills herself to be a person wholly unaffected by him. Still, she gives a point to Rio in the tally. 

“I can’t tell if I’m alarmed that you haven’t broken in already or impressed that you restrained yourself at only leaving a note outside.”

“I know. Me too.” He nods along, as he picks up one of the small Paper Porcupine cards that get tucked in the bag with every order. He turns it around in his hands and ends up drumming his thumbs along the heavy-stock. 

Beth swirls her spoon in her yogurt for something to do. She brings the spoon out, taps it along the rim, and lets the dollop of yogurt fall back in. Beth remembers that she was just getting after Emma last week for playing with her food. She stares hard at the cup and can’t help but poke a little bit at his absence. 

“Did Marcus have a good Christmas?”

“Yeah. I got him that book—that one Danny likes, on dinosaurs. Kid still wants me to read it to him every night he’s over. Gets so hyped up it takes him forever to get to sleep.”

She beams. “I’m glad.”

“Got him that geology kit for Three Kings Day, too.”

Beth doesn’t ever admit it but she does listen to Rio. Most of the time, at least. For better or worse, she takes too many of his comments to heart. When the reverse is apparent, it’s… something. She loves it when he calls back to their details, especially these lighthearted ones. Gosh, she must have talked to him about that dinosaur book in September?

“What about you? Your holidays good?”

Beth thinks back to those days right before leaving Dean, the looming collision and separation, knowing that it was the kids’ last holiday season the way they had always experienced it. The future she was building would be different but it would be better, healthier for her, for her children, even for Dean. 

She talks Rio through the gifts and details the kids’ reactions, lingering on a comment about how much Jane missed Marcus. It doesn’t go unnoticed, and he probes, “And what about you? How’d you make out?”

She considers all the ways to answer the question and goes with the truth. 

“One husband less.” A grin spreads wide across her face.

He grins back at her—impressed—and something else in his gaze. But, Beth latches on to the praise when he says, “Fucking finally, darlin’.”

“And before you ask” Beth waves a showy index finger, “I secured Boland Bubbles.”

“Didn’t have a doubt.”

“And, like you already know, I’m in a new apartment now.”

“It’s nice, ma. Close to here.” 

“You really didn’t go inside?”

“The door handles ain’t as easy. ” Rio eyes her reproachfully. He cants his body, leaning precariously back on the stool. “Which is good. Safe.” There’s a pause as his gaze turns sly, and he settles into a more stable seat, leaning his elbows to rest against the table. “When are you gonna get me my key?”

Beth gives him a look she usually reserves for Annie. 

“What, too much? Ain’t we married now or something?”

“ _Partnered_.” Which is adjacent to the truth. 

“I’m just saying maybe I should leave a toothbrush. Make it real convincing.” He taps his fingers on his chin, pretending to consider. “We can take the kids out for a snow day at the park? Take some blended family photos? I could leave a change of clothes, you could leave your panties— “ Rio props his chin against his palm, as his gaze shifts over to hers to clock her reaction to his word choice, “at mine.” 

“Stop.” Beth can feel heat staining her cheeks. She hates him.

“You can leave your old lady pajamas, too.”

“Stop. It.”

Rio’s hand drops away from his face and reaches out to grab the hand that isn’t still holding her spoon. His fingers trace her ring finger. “Don’t this mean I need to get you a rock?” Goosebumps, rise unbidden on her arms. He smirks and draws in closer. “What size ring you wear?”

Beth considers flicking what’s left of her yogurt straight at his expensive black peacoat. She thinks about how he’d have to take it to the cleaners and can barely restrain herself. But she does, drawing on the reservoirs of her patience. Beth snatches her hand away, bringing it safely back to her yogurt cup. “That’s none of your business.” 

On the counter, her phone buzzes, lighting up with a text from an unknown number. They both glance down to read it. ‘Hey Beth! This is Marjie. What about dinner sometime this weekend? We’ll host :)’

Beth and Rio seem to finish reading it at the same time, when another text pops up from a second number—Miriam. ‘Christopher should come, too!’

Fuck. 

She places her spoon gently down, abandoning her snack, as a sinking feeling forms deep in her chest. The idea of playing pretend at this, purposefully, is too much. The whole thing had only come out as an act of desperation built off of old memories of weaving lies for Turner, of that terrible day at the OBGYN clinic. “I’ll say you’re sick.”

Rio shrugs, nonchalant. “I’m free,” he offers. “You don’t have your kids this weekend, right?”

Beth shakes her head. “We’re not doing this.”

He looks at her, crime boss stoicism creeping back in. He shifts, snapping his hips as he draws himself up. They’re both seated on either side of the table, but he seems to tower over her. “Yeah, we are.”

She notes the serious tenor of his voice. Her stomach begins to twist again, but not with hunger. Beth gets the sense that she should be bracing herself. 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you want me to play nice—to play your sweet, little boyfriend ballin’ and throwing around mad cash for you—then, we’re going to need to come to an arrangement.”

“I don’t _need_ you to play my sweet boyfriend. It’s already done. I snagged the deal.”

“Yeah, except you’ve got weeks left before the deal actually goes through. Seems like plenty of time for me to fuck up your lil’ lie.” 

Beth splutters. “I could say you are on a business trip.”

“For over a month? Darlin’, I don’t think you’re hearing me. I’m not going to play along with that.” He says the last part slow, weighty. Lets it sink in. 

Beth searches for a way.

“I could say that we broke up.”

Rio looks at her in showy disbelief. “And what about when I straight up tell those nice white ladies that it was a lie? Tell ‘em to look a little deeper in the back room?”

Beth blanches. “You wouldn’t.” 

He shrugs, twisting his lips in that stupid theatrical way he does. “I would.”

“You would just be shooting yourself in the foot. You really think after that, they’re going to sell to _you_?”

“Nah. But, at least the press wouldn’t be yours.” 

She blinks at him, wrecked by his spitefulness, and trying not to let it show. “Why do you care so much?”

Rio looks away. “Can’t have you getting too big in your boots.” 

“Why?” It comes out gnarled, wounded. Beth sucks in a breath. 

“You might be finally free of your ball and chain, but you ain’t walking away from this, Elizabeth.”

She’s earnest when she says, “I wasn’t trying to!”

Rio pauses, and he looks over at her, reading the honesty in tone, her expression. He pivots, his hands dropping back down to play with the trinkets around the register. “Besides, after all that fronting the other day, you really think you’re gonna un-invite me from your little dinner? Nah. I’m going to play your happy hubby—“

“ _Partner_ ,” Beth hisses.

“And when the store is in your name, you’re going to continue to cut me in. After you pay me for my services, you and your girls will take fifteen percent.” 

Beth’s jaw drops. For a moment she’s stunned at the audacity— then, the fury comes. “ _Fuck_ you.”

“That’s kinda the point.”

“You’ll take _nothing_.”

“Baby, you ain’t listening. This ain’t _yours_ ,” Rio says, menacing, but it no longer scares her. “Not without me.”

Beth squares her shoulder, grits her teeth, and stares him down. “Seventy/thirty and you’ll take the thirty.”

“You _owe_ me.” It’s a gut reaction how much she refutes this— rigidity swelling and constricting her core. How could he possibly think she owed him any more money? Rio’s timber is low, severe as he continues. “And after this? You’ll owe me even more. You’re foolin’ yourself if you think you’re gonna move cash through my territory and ain’t gonna give me my due.” 

The edge of desperation makes tears prick at the corner of Beth eyes, and she has to re-center herself in her righteous anger, “Rio, I do _all_ of it. The printing, the washing—”

“In _my_ territory. With _my_ blood on your hands. And now, _my_ compliance in your little lie.”

She takes a gulping breath, full of indignation and wet like the inhale before a sob. Beth seals her lips back into a severe, thin line. 

Rio reaches forward to pat her shoulder. The weight of his hand is warm through the fabric of her shirt, heavier than Marjorie’s hand earlier, firm. She remembers his declaration from last year—that the only way to be completely free of him is to kill him. 

Beth swallows.

She hates him. 

“Partners, yeah?”

She glares at him balefully. 

Normally, this is the point in the conversation he makes his dramatic exit but Rio lingers, waiting. Beth thinks he looks almost uneasy, uncomfortable at playing the enforcer. He looks like he’s tired.

_Well,_ good _,_ Beth thinks bitterly. She can’t believe that just two months ago she had thought they could be _friends_. 

Surprisingly, he speaks again. “You really think I was gonna let you off the hook on this one? Mama, when are you going to learn?” 

“Don’t lecture me.” Beth draws herself up, clenching her lips together. She waits for him to leave, so she can tearfully close up for the night, escape this conversation. He doesn’t. She looks around the store for something to work on, but all of the closing tasks are done, by virtue of her showing off for Marjorie this afternoon.

She looks back across the register at Rio, sitting firmly in his perch. She realizes she needs to move this along, to get him closer to stepping out the door, and leave her in peace so she can go home and cry. She sets her intention for getting out of there soon, takes a breath, and pushes all of the pain down. It comes out a bit strained, but she pushes forward saying, “We’re going to need to get our story straight.” 

“Oh yeah?” He nods. She thinks this is what he’s been waiting for. 

“Well, what’s your story on how we met?”

“We already told them that.” 

“Yeah, but who are we as a couple? How did we start and—” She gestures with her hand, a motion to continue. “Who are we now?”

He tilts his head, the corner of his lip twitching up. “I think you’re goin’ too deep.”

“You said we met at a grocery store.”

Rio laughs. “I mean, it’s almost true.” 

She scoffs, “Cute, but your ‘game’—” Beth brings up her fingers to make air quotes, “—isn’t that strong.”

“Baby, what do you know about my game?”

“First of all, plenty.” His eyebrows quickly raise at the admission. “Second, that’s so weird. I can’t believe you _actually_ said that. How would that have even happened?”

“We were examining the melons and I asked you to tap—“

Beth’s nose compulsively wrinkles and she rears back. She’s bruised, badly, from this terrible conversation, the latest in demoralizing, nightmarish interactions with Rio, but somehow a flush has still managed to affix itself on her face at the suggestion. “ _No_. Just no.” 

“Alright then, you come up with something better.”

“What if…” Beth pauses, letting it come to her. “We met in the baking aisle. You had a question about the type of flour you needed and we got to talking. I mentioned my experience, my award-winning muffins—”

His mouth twists like he just sucked on a lemon, or like he’s about to crack up. “I ain’t got anything against a good muffin, but god, we ain’t those people, not even pretend.”

“Well, _I_ am that person,” Beth says, offended and glaring. “I have made plenty of friends that way.” At this Rio, throws his head back and laughs, loud, presumably enjoying this conversation. For a minute, she thinks he’s going to fall off his stool and hopes that he does. “And it’s not like we can tell them the real story of who we are, how we actually met because of that grocery store.” It echoes in their past, and for a moment they’re both in her minivan again in the weekday morning sun. Beth continues, “It’s our old question. What is someone like you doing with someone like me?”

Something in his features shifts _open_. The tiredness from earlier seems to completely disappear and he’s almost fond—but she heads him off. “And no, we’re not telling them you were—hitting it.” She refuses to be embarrassed and powers through on to eyeing him deliberately. 

“Ma, weren’t you just tellin’ me that you were about to let me sample your muffins in the middle of the baking aisle.”

“Oh my god. Don’t be—” her voice lowers to a whisper, even though there’s no one around to overhear, “—indecent.”

“You started it.”

“I was talking about _actual_ muffins.” 

Rio’s still snickering as he asks, “What else you got?”

“Well, again _you_ said had said our first date was at a bar? Where were you going with that?” Well, she knows. Half of their interactions have been at a bar, his bars. The other half on park benches and picnic tables. 

“Oh yeah, _your_ old story. One-night stand—excuse me, _day_ stand. I fucked you on top of your blueberry pancakes? I mean that’s not exactly appropriate for our future company, either.”

It’s an admission of his own.

In a kind of distant, disassociating way, she can acknowledge that Rio’s point tally has just superseded hers by a million. There will never be hope of point recovery. She really doesn’t have the emotional energy to finish this conversation. So, it just comes out. 

“He told you?”

“Yeah.” Rio bites his lip, nodding. Her eyes can’t help but zero in, even while experiencing unprecedented levels of distress. She tries to summon her strength as Rio says, “Good story, though.”

Beth nods back at him, finding her thread again. “Honestly, we can just use that again. It’s simple enough and close to the truth. I met you at the grocery store. We exchanged numbers, texted back and forth. Nothing came of it. Then, we ran into each other at a bar. It rekindled right away.”

“‘Kay.”

They’re left there in silence, nodding at each other and thinking about all the times at the bar, and the most meaningful time. 

Beth is itching for it to be closing time, itching to send him on his way. She presses on, “So, we should talk about —“ and then it occurs to her that she’s incredibly uncomfortable with the end of her sentence. She looks down at the table, around the store, anywhere but Rio. “—touching.”

They blink at each other, both surprised at what she said, that she said it at all. 

He grins suddenly. It’s sharp. “Elizabeth, if you want to touch me all you gotta do is ask.”

Beth rolls her eyes and resists the urge to tamp down her fingers to her cheeks in an effort to transfer some of the heat away. 

“We have to make decisions on these things. Or we could catch ourselves in a lie, or make it— _weird_. We need to know what kind of couple we are.” She thinks of the backroom conversation with Marjorie and Miriam, how she had felt swallowed up in Rio’s embrace—warm, protected, and all-too-happy with his chest against her cheek. She’s not sure if she can do that again, but Beth thinks back to the love languages Marjorie had brought up earlier. She had joked about gift-giving, but Rio really was so… tactile. “And you—I know you really like touching.” 

Rio looks at her, his mouth twisting a bit before he seems to decide to cut her a break. “I mean, mama, all couples touch each other some, right?”

The eye contact that’s happening right now feels like too much. She’s really tired and her thoughts get stuck in what it feels like when he touches her. The edges of them waver, soften, and slowly they lean towards each other over the desk. His fingers extend to trace the edge of her face. She lets her eyes fall closed for lack of anything else to do, giving in for a moment. 

Then she says, “So, we do _this_ right?” She’s referring to all the hair tucking, the caresses with his pinkie, the tips of his fingers brushing her skin. The touch is nothing new, engrained as part of their particular canon. But, the last time he had done it was at the park bench in November, when they had fronted to that PTA parent, and then he had vanished. Is this… platonic? Is this what business associates do? People with violence and despair between them? She just… has no idea anymore. 

“Yeah.” He says it lightly, as if he touched everybody this way. But she’s never seen him do it to anyone else.

“Okay.” She feels his fingers dip to brush the dimple at her chin. It makes her feel too much _something_ and she shifts away out of his grasp. She clenches her hands around the edge of the table-top as an effort to ground herself back in the room.

“So, then what are our other rules for touching?”

His eyes travel down her frame, what’s visible behind the counter at least. “Like if I can touch your—“

“No!” Beth says, exasperated, 

Quickly, he backs off, playing faux-chivalrous, “Oh, so you just mean holding hands and whatnot?”

“ _Yeah_.”

Rio’s eyebrows scrunch together and he slowly shakes his head at her in disbelief.

Beth’s voice comes out embarrassingly small. “You don’t want to hold hands?” 

“Yeah, you can hold my hand.” He says it like the most obvious thing in the world. Beth flings her gaze out into the storeroom, willing for some supernatural force to spirit her away.

“Okay.”

“O-kay.”

They’re back to awkwardly nodding in silence. She looks back at him. At this point, eye contact is still really too much for Beth to handle, but she refuses to look away again. 

“You can also touch my--“ Her eyes dart down to her hips. “You know. If you insist.”

Rio’s back to biting his lip. The expression on his face is amused? Pained? Beth can’t quite say.

“‘Kay. You can grab my ass, too.” Beth squawks. “Y’know, so it’s fair.”

She eyes him reproachfully. “Fine. I will.”

“Neat.”

“Great.” 

Beth checks the clock. Five minutes till close and then maybe she’ll be free. Neither of them has the patience to stay here all night.

“So…” She casts about.

Rio pointedly waits for her to say more. It settles with her. She realizes what they haven’t talked about yet, what she’s been skirting around this entire conversation.

Her eyes drop to his lips. His drop to hers. She feels a warm throb through her body. For a moment, that familiar haze from _before_ (before the trauma between them, before the kidnapping and his betrayal, before _lung, shoulder, spleen_ , her guilt, his vengeance, and the ghost in the store) creeps back in at the corners of her vision. She thinks back to _before_ , thinks back to that single solitary day he kissed her in her old bedroom. She remembers that his lips were soft, softer when they were swollen from kissing her, everywhere, softer after they were both fucked out. Beth wets her lips, his eyes follow the movement. If she was a different sort of person, she would drag him across the checkout desk to kiss her—fuck her—would have gotten it out of their systems ages ago. Maybe that would have taken the edge off, curbing the animosity only he has ever inspired in her. But tonight her whole being is smarting from Rio’s never-ending plays for control, and she’s just not that person. 

Beth drops her gaze back down to the table. She fiddles with a stray ribbon they use for gift wrapping, twirling it around and around her finger. She lets it get tight, biting into her skin. Then she lets it unspool and starts again. 

“We won’t need to, right?” It comes out smaller than she would like, faltering.  


He goes easy on her. 

“Nah.” Rio says, crossing his arms, folding into himself playfully, almost making himself smaller—for her. “Too much.” 

The softness in Rio’s pitch, any softness from him at all, has it bubbling to the tip of her tongue, spilling forth. “This is all—mortifying.” Beth clears her throat and tries to ease the emotion in her voice. But, what was the use in hiding this from him? He already knew. “I don’t know how to do this, to pretend… date. I married my first boyfriend—and we’re divorced now, divorc _ing_. But, he’s the only person I’ve ever dated. ”

Rio peers over at her. The look he gives her is heavy.

Beth stares back at him. Then, as if this interaction couldn’t get any worse, she realizes what Rio must be thinking about. 

“I mean besides… you.” 

He visibly takes a breath. 

And now Beth’s really, _really_ embarrassed like it has to rank in the top-five most uncomfortable moments in herlife. It’s not all-out devastating—like some of the ugliest things between them—but, she’s _mortified_ , like teenage levels of mortification. Was Beth doomed to be forever romantically stunted in the early phases of life? Again, she wishes desperately that the earth would just swallow her whole. Why is talking around him, to him, so damn difficult all the time? “I mean, that wasn’t even dating. It was just one time.”

Rio holds his face very still, watching her closely. “One time?”

“Yeah,” Beth draws herself up taller. 

Rio shakes his head, again, serving her incredulity? Or—it’s that look that indicates he’s clearly wondering why he decided to bet on her all that time ago. Through her distress, she finds it within herself to glower at him. 

“Two times.” He holds up his fingers counting, “My bar, your bed.”

“It was a generalization.”

“Uh-huh. Like how you was generalizin’ about how you only ever been with your ex. Which time did you forget about?”

Beth is looking straight at the counter, blushing beet red, when she says, “I didn’t forget.”

She has no idea what to do with herself so she tucks the complimentary gift wrapping into a neater line, tidies the pen holder. Beth’s never considered herself to be a coward, but if they have to actually talk about how they had sex she thinks she might finally self-immolate.

He continues, “There was kinda more than just those two times, too.”

Summoned, memories of all the other times he’s touched her hair, the many glasses of bourbon they’ve shared, the lingering conversations at the drops, the return to those conversations this past Fall at the park, the way he listens to her, the way he looks at her when she hands him fresh cash—like he would fuck her on it if she was interested in that sort of thing—flash through her head. Beth bites her bottom lip, and something flashes in Rio’s expression in response. 

But still. He seems to be waiting for her to say something.

At this point, it’s three minutes before close, but blessedly, her pleas to a higher power are answered, and the bell at the front door dings again. Two customers come in for a last-minute purchase. 

She swallows. Her throat is parched. She chooses to believe that’s from her afternoon talking to Marjorie without very many breaks, not whatever just happened in that conversation. “You know what? It’s fine. We’ll figure it out. It’s just business, and it’s just dinner.” Beth shifts to the customers, putting on her biggest, people-pleasing smile and sing-songs, “Welcome to Paper Porcupine!”

Two women hover by the door, smiling at Beth apologetically. “Is it okay if we run in for something?”

“Absolutely. No rush.”

Beth swings around the counter feeling the weight of Rio’s gaze as she approaches the customers. They’re looking for party invitations. Beth drags out the interaction, talks them into purchasing a custom order. She takes her time walking them through it, donning the mask of her most chatty self if a little frayed at the edges tonight. She offers to open a package of calligraphy pens for the women to try, fetch them all some citrus-infused water. One of the women looks up at Rio, who continues to sit sublimely at the register, watching them. Of all the times,  he’s finally willing to wait on her. He hasn’t even pulled out his phone. 

Rio gestures permissively and smiles. It’s that smile of his that is charming, handsome, and isn’t wholly kind. “Don’t mind me. I love watching my girl work.” 

God fucking damn it. She _hates_ him.

“Oh! You’re together?” The gazes of these strangers pivot from Rio and Beth, drawing a line between them.

“Mmhm. We own the place.” He looks over at Beth and winks.

At that, Beth wills herself away to grab them waters in to-go cups, and essentially jogs back, to make sure nothing too damaging is said while she’s out of earshot. She wraps up the order as quickly as she can as Rio continues to interject, sharing more and more absurd comments. He has the audacity to snatch her cup of yogurt and polish off the last spoonfuls of it, too. There’s a long moment where he seems to relish licking the last bit of it off of her spoon and, _yup_ , she hates him. 

As she wraps up with the customers, Beth considers what she could throw at him if no one else were here. The children’s books don’t have the aerodynamics she needs, nor are the cards heavy enough to make the statement she wants. Perhaps a candle. 

Finally, she follows the customers to the door. Beth locks it behind them and flips the sign closed. She turns to Rio and scowls. 

He shrugs. “We needed to practice.”

“ _Never_ do that again,” Beth says, gritting her teeth. 

Rio unleashes that smile again. It’s the kind of smile that would be pleasant on anyone else, but on him is a sign to tread carefully. 

Beth holds her ground and squares her shoulders. “I can’t have another Boland Motors. You might be in this with me to… _some_ degree.”

“Yeah, seventy/thirty.”

“ _Honey_ ,” Beth says, to drive him as crazy as he’s driving her. Her voice drips with condescension and she rallies the last of her nerve. “You’ll be lucky if you get a fifty/fifty.”

Rio opens his mouth to retort, she’s sure, but Beth holds her hand out, motioning for him to stop. And maybe something about the movement is unraveled because he really does shut up. “You are _not_ allowed to undermine me _here_. The store is going to be in my name, and it is _off-limits_.”

A beat passes, where Beth stands tall, shoulders taut, the hint of a sneer curled on her lips. Underneath the show, she’s weary as the weight of his stare burns her. 

But, unexpectedly, Rio relents, “Okay,” It’s barely an acknowledgment, but it’s something, something almost solemn. Beth moves past him, flicking off the lights along the way to the back room. She thinks longingly of the safe haven of her car, her apartment. Then, she remembers the new texts waiting to be answered on her phone. Honestly, if she wasn’t a mother she’d just get rid of her cell entirely.

“So, any evening this weekend is good for you? For the dinner?” To be honest, she’s surprised knowing how much he likes to pack in his calendar. It must be his off-week with Marcus, otherwise, he wouldn’t be offering, but these “child-free” weekends often aren’t free at all for him. 

“I can clear my schedule.”

Beth grabs her lunch from the mini-fridge. When she turns she sees that he’s hovering at one of the work desks, watching her. There have been times, months, eras when his capacity for cruelty, his inability to let anything slide, the attention to detail he pays to her every aspect, has felt suffocating. He had inhabited that version of himself earlier. But, now as they move to part ways again, he’s quiet. The shadows on his face are more pronounced and she finds herself wondering about it. Why do they persist in draining each other so much? 

She gathers her lunchbox in both hands, playing with the seam along the handle. It looks like Rio has more to say, but he seems to be waiting her out. And Beth — Beth really has no fucking clue. Then he prompts, “You don’t want to talk it out more?”

She shakes her head, somewhat desperately. 

Rio lets out a laugh, “We’ve barely decided anything, mama. I thought you wanted to nail this.”

I mean she did, and does, but, now—she’s zapped. The yogurt eased her stomach camps but now she’s lightheaded, woozy. She wants to go home. 

“Let’s just play it by ear. Marjorie was here earlier—” She considers his timing. “Which I’m sure you know. She and her sister totally bought it. We just need to carry that momentum forward.”

Rio frowns, residual tension etched across the lines of his body, too. But, then he takes a breath, blows out his cheeks, and says, “I’ll walk you home.”

“No, thanks,” she says wryly. 

He smirks, knowing there’s no option for a yes, knowing perfectly well that her minivan is sitting right outside. “Oh, come on, ma. I haven’t even seen your new place.”

“I’m sure you will one day.” Beth means that she’s sure as anything that he’ll end up doing something invasive and sinister in his latest play for power. It’ll be one of the latest nasty things between them when they’re less chummy again, playing harder at the archenemy dynamic **.** But, then another meaning settles over Beth—and Rio—blanketing the moment with that old undercurrent of heat. Briefly, she considers what he would look like in her new apartment—in the living room on her threadbare couch, his skin exposed, tawny against the pink and white of her bathroom, in the expanse of her new bed. 

Beth quickly tugs on her coat, struggling in fastening the buttons. He waits for her, a small smile on his lips. Once she’s ready, together they move out into the alley behind the store. She turns to lock this last door. The alley is half-lit by a street light. Rio turns on the light on his phone so she can better make out the keyhole. She can smell the brisk cold winter air and him. 

A thought strikes her. Beth leans back to look at the door, to look over the building as a whole. He switches the light off of his phone and she can feel the warmth emanating from Rio, close along her back. 

“I’m buying this, you know.”

“You are.”

Beth looks at Rio over her shoulder, he looks down at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees his ridiculous, boxyMercedes parked down the street. He leans in close, lips brushing her hair and Beth goes really still, un sure of where this is going to go.

“And we’ve got a seventy/thirty split.”

Beth elbows Rio in his side and steps away. His hands come up to hold the side of his rib cage, playing wounded. 

“Good night,” Beth says, wry, spent and ready for her bed or truly any comfortable surface to lounge on sadly. She’ll have a good cry and then stay up far too late plotting on how to wrangle the profits back from Rio.

“And the dinner?” Rio calls out behind her. 

Beth turns back, looking at him over her shoulder. “I’ll text you the details.”

“You better, ma.”

Rio walks away, an elegant silhouette in the night.  


In some regards, it’ll be easy to play his girlfriend—to play infatuated. She’s certainly played pretend for Dean. What could be that different about doing this with Rio?  


As she walks to her car, Beth pulls out her phone and texts the Vandenberg sisters. Then, she steels herself for the conversation she knows she needs to have, the one she should have had the day of winning the bid.

She opens her favorite group chat and makes herself send, “I’ve been meaning to tell you guys something.”

No backing out now. She knows she needs to complete the thought before she drives home or she will _hear about it_ from Ruby, so she fires off the rest of it.

“I left out some details about the sale.”

She includes the smiling, purple devil character, emoji-speak in the group chat for Rio. It had been Annie’s payback after she had learned that Beth had slept with Rio the first time. 

There’s silence on the thread, but responses are usually instantaneous. Neither Ruby nor Annie are at work, so Beth knows they’ve seen it. 

Beth types out, “It’s complicated, but I might have pretended that we were dating to lock down the sale.” Her finger hovers over the send. And fuck it, she really just needs to get home and wind down. She sends it through and then turns off her notifications for the short drive home. When she checks it in a few minutes later, after she’s safely pulled in to her spot at the complex, she’ll be glad she did with what’s exploding in the group chat and the calls coming in. 

It’s Wednesday night. She’s got two to three days to prepare for the weekend dinner date. She’ll just run another bath, pour a double, maybe a triple, and settle in for the night, finally and blessedly alone. 

She can do this. She can totally do this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you @foxmagpie for being the most phenomenal person to bounce ideas off of. Thank you for your support looking at various drafts of this chapter and all of your edits. You really pushed me to deepen the characterization and emotional beats. I appreciate you, friend!
> 
> Readers, thanks for coming back after the long wait! I hope you enjoy this update!


	3. Out of Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth has a series of chats with Ruby and Annie about the situation she's in with Rio. Beth and Rio's non-date looms closer.

* * *

The following evening, the vibe is off. The women meet up at the end of the day to print the latest batch of cash, and the three of them are tired, sluggish, and quiet. 

But, they’re never this quiet—especially Annie. Well, Beth could admit that ‘never’ was a generalization. This stifled sort of silence only happens when something isn’t quite right. 

On the odd occasion that something festers between the three, it used to be Ruby and Beth, best friends, more mature, and wise who would unite as a front to admonish Annie on whatever caprice she had taken too far. Rarely was it Annie and Beth taking a stand against Ruby. While the Marks women were sisters by blood—Ruby was Beth’s best, the person who made Beth believe in soul mates despite her lackluster marriage, the person who had shared all of life’s milestones with her. 

For twenty-five years, Beth had never really been on the outs, not on anything serious. However, since that first Fine and Frugal robbery, it was increasingly Ruby and Annie on the other side of the triangle, and increasingly, that divide haunted Beth. Tonight is yet another night of many in the past couple of years where Beth feels lonely in the company of her sister and her best friend. At this point, she’s somewhat resigned to this as her fate. 

When Beth left Paper Porcupine last night, she had already been plenty exhausted _before_ she had made herself fire off that text to the group chat. Once she had made it home, safely inside of her apartment, Ruby had insisted on a three-way call and they had so _many_ questions for Beth. It had been… a lot to handle at the end of a long day. 

Beth had rallied as best she could. She knew she owed it to Ruby and Annie. So she poured herself the bourbon she had been looking forward to and sank into the soft comfort of her pillows for what was a challenging conversation. As she sipped on her drink, Beth tried to find words for what had been unfolding with the sale of Paper Porcupine and how Rio had inserted himself in the mix. 

There had been the necessary and outraged, “So when you say, you ‘pretended we were dating’ you mean…” from Ruby and a blunt, “What the fuck happened?” from Annie.

Which had spiraled into, “Who's buying the store? You or _him_?” and a disbelieving, “He ‘ _twirled’_ you? He twirled you ‘ _a little bit’_? How does one ‘twirl’ ‘a little bit’? Doesn’t one twirl or not twirl?”

“I don’t know.” Beth had found herself gesturing aggressively even though no one could see her. She accidentally sloshed a few drops of her bourbon on her bedspread. “It was more like a celebratory sway.”

The line had been quiet, as Beth dabbed insistently at the bourbon spots with her fingertips.She quickly moved on, trying to defend how the scene had unfolded the week before with Rio and the Vandenberg sisters. “I mean a real couple would have kissed at that moment. And there’s no way _that_ was going to happen.” 

There was another silence. 

“And _I_ am buying the store, with _your_ support,” Beth insisted. “He's not paying for anything.”

Then, Ruby asked, “But, he’s offering?” 

"No,” Beth said emphatically. “I just _pretended_ he was offering. That was how the whole faked relationship ruse started, so I could edge him out of the competition.” Beth had promptly become side-tracked on this line of thinking now that she was finally able to vent.“I still can’t believe him. He offered _double—_ ”

“But, B—” Ruby had reeled Beth in, still searching for clarity. “Even now that you won he’s… making you pretend that he’s your boyfriend?”

“Yeah, it’s his whole stupid threat—” She mimicked him, dropping her voice ridiculously low. The liquid in her glass spilled over the rim again as she adopted his swagger. Tipsy with exhaustion and the bourbon, she recalled precisely what he said earlier that night, “Can’t have you getting too big in your boots— Can you believe he claims I owe him a seventy/thirty split?” 

The conversation had rambled as Ruby and Annie asked her more follow-up questions, trying to piece together a clearer understanding of the mess Beth was in. The call had gone on late into the night. Beth can see that she had been pretty fired up letting it all come out and had struggled with talking about her interactions with Rio. She glossed over them, picked the highlights because she never quite could explain that version of Beth or more appropriately, ‘Elizabeth’, the version herself Rio had helped nurture into existence. Ultimately the call had dropped off with sleepy commitments to meet up at Paper Porcupine after Beth closed. 

The following evening there had been the customary small talk about their days—and then the conversation dropped off. There was no broaching of the phone call from the night before, no mention of Rio, nothing. Beth thinks— _knows_ they’re mad at her and feels defeated. She had come clean sooner than she ever had in the past when it came to anything involving Rio.Beth worries about what Ruby must be thinking, how Annie must be judging her, and that worry settles like a block of ice in her chest. 

Beth goes on to fuck up the pulp mix and then they have to re-do the batch from scratch. Now it was a few minutes after midnight, and they are still waiting for the new sheets of pulp to set. Beth has half the mind to ask the girls to leave it for now and pick up again tomorrow… But, then they’d have to push back the drop and she could already hear Rio, pissed and buzzing in her ear. She heaves a sigh as she peeks at her best friend and her little sister. 

Ruby and Annie sit together, on the other side of the work table, away from her. The lights of the front room are long turned off and the store is silent except for the sounds coming from Annie’s phone as she swipes through tiktok, and the soft sounds of Ruby’s fingers tapping on the screen of her phone. Periodically, Ruby looks up from texting Stan to watch a video with Annie. 

Beth tries distraction. She catches up on messages from her kids’ schools, emails from the PTA, and school administrators. She schedules her responses to go out at a reasonable hour mid-morning. After she’s done and with nothing left to do, Beth sets her phone down to walk tiredly across the room. She checks on the pulp again, setting a careful fingertip against it. Beth curses under her breath when she feels just the slightest hint of moisture. It means they have at least fifteen more minutes ahead of them before they can get to work. 

Behind her, a text comes through on Beth’s phone. It buzzes jarringly on the worktable and something inside of Beth flutters anxiously, a warm sort of flutter when she realizes who it is. She still owes him a text confirming the details of the date—no, not at date— the dinner. 

An adjacent realization seems to strike Annie and Ruby that the grand total of two people who would usually message Beth past midnight are sitting right here in store. Ruby sighs loudly in the hushed room and brings her fingertips to massage firmly at the pressure points on her brows. Annie, on the other hand, crosses her arms, her own phone clenched tightly in one hand, as she stares hard at Beth from across the room. 

Beth avoids Annie’s gaze and instead bends closer to study the sheets of drying pulp. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see when they turn to look at each other with exasperation. 

Beth’s phone buzzes again. It could be the reminder (have two minutes already passed?), _or_ it could be another message from him. Her fingertips twitch with the impulse to check to text. Even now after all their betrayals and his recent radio silence, there’s something begrudgingly pleasant about the thought that Rio is out there thinking of her, messaging her. She wonders if he’s at his bar. Something burns low inside Beth as she imagines him in an apartment like his last one. Images rise unbidden in her head of him on one of his leather sofas or moving about a sleek, perfectly-equipped kitchen—or lounging in his bed. 

But, just because she strong-armed him into playing pretend, and then he strong-armed her in retaliation, does _not_ mean they are friends again (or that they ever were). She needs to cool it, and not completely expose whatever embarrassing mess she is in front of Ruby, or give Annie any more ammo. Instead, Beth bites her bottom lip and continues to fastidiously regard the pulp. 

A beat passes. 

“You gonna get that?” Annie asks.

Ruby comes in for the assist, “What if it’s Dean? Or the kids?” 

“Yeah,” Annie says, playing dumb in the least believable way, “My nephew’s got a new phone right?” Her tone becomes beseeching, turning Beth’s sometime penchant for helicopter parenting against her, “What if _Kenny_ is messaging you?”

Kenny was indeed enchanted by his new phone. It had been bestowed over the holiday season with the condition that Kenny had to answer each and every phone call from his mother, now that she would be living apart from him and his siblings. Beth had imagined the phone serving as a life-line connecting her to her children. For so many idle moments, she had turned over the worry in her head—how the kids would respond to the change. Beth still carries pain from her parents’ separation and had become fixated on this vision of her children inconsolable.But, of course, real-life had played out differently. 

Kenny answered Beth’s daily phone calls and dutifully passed the phone around to his siblings. The phone calls were short bursts of her children’s personalities. They were all still so young, her girls still in elementary school. They were unable to talk about the content of their days in any organized way, more-so coming to the phone to regale Beth with the details of whatever they were doing at the moment (never homework) or the latest sibling squabble, sometimes pulling Beth in to mediate over FaceTime. But, _they_ rarely messaged _her_ , and when they did? It was because Dean made them. 

While Beth knew, rationally, that this was age-typical behavior and that her children loved her, adored her even—it gnawed at her. Despite all the years of careful mothering, she felt diminished. Her children were experiencing the first real financial security in their lives because of _her_. But, regardless, she had found a new reason to be guilty. Now she spent the quiet moments buffeted by guilt about working so much, about seeking her independence _now_ , at pursuing her wholeness, and she would itch to call her eldest, use her lifeline. 

On the contrary, Annie could never relate. She was the constant recipient of a barrage of texts from Beth’s nephew—about whatever tv show Ben was watching, soliciting his mother’s opinion about his friend drama at school, even just to say _hi_. Annie was a perpetual mess and forever falling apart. Her own parenting style was tinged in odd ways by their mother’s parenting, but in meaningful ways, she was an incredible parent to Ben. The love between Annie and her son was _beautiful,_ real—and Beth didn’t begrudge her it, _couldn’t_ begrudge her it. 

But, she couldn’t help but be jealous. 

And then at the third corner of the friend triangle was the Hill family—perfect and so loving. Sara actually called Ruby of her own accord, had done so earlier even, to ask a question for her research paper. Ruby had briefly put Sara on speakerphone and Baby Harry (a third grader now! Not even a baby anymore) had been audible in the background, chiming into the conversation.

Beth couldn’t begrudge her friend this either. But, still—Beth yearned. She yearned for something richer with her children and it seemed she would forever be the other side of one division or another. 

So when Annie makes that comment about Kenny texting her, the hurt in Beth blooms and that terrible, lonely ache compounds. Beth turns to glare balefully at her sister who defiantly raises her jaw, waiting. 

“It’s probably just spam,” Beth says. She hopes her tone is convincingly aloof, as she walks over to check her phone. 

“Hm, must be,” says Ruby, though her tone laced with skepticism. “I mean I wonder who else would be texting you so late at night?”

“Gee, I wonder,” Annie says, sardonic. 

“Who else would know your schedule so well?” Ruby continues, pretend-wondering aloud.

“Yeah, that you might be here, still awake, on a school night no less,” Annie adds. “Metaphorically speaking.”

“Or… literally, even.” Ruby pursed her lips, feigning contemplation. 

“Perhaps…” Annie says, letting the pause hang in the air. “Your ‘new’ boyfriend?” She even has the fucking audacity to use air quotes. 

“Guys— _stop_.” 

Beth unlocks her phone. The text _is_ from Rio (her heart beats loud in her ears—probably out of residual stress from their last interaction) and it’s another fucking emoji. This time it’s one of the couples—the coloring adjusted to poorly resemble them, holding hands. Afterward, he’s posed another question mark. 

Beth knows what he’s asking. He’s asking the details of the date— _fuck_. It’s just dinner—with the Vandenburg sisters. One might even say… a business dinner. It definitely was not a real date and he was simply asking for the confirmation and the details. But, couldn’t he communicate with her like does about any regular drop? Or like any other sane human? Just because she was able to divine this message doesn’t mean she should be expected to—and now she has to acknowledge she understood what it means. She realizes a blush is sitting hotly on her cheeks and she tries to decide what to do. She should have just bossed up and messaged him earlier because now Rio was using her own emoji text proclivities to make of fun of her again at obscene hours of the night. 

Annie clears her throat loudly. 

“So, what he say?”

Beth’s that anxious block of ice around her core reminds her it’s still sitting there.But, this isn’t the moment to leave anything out anymore and this is simple enough. “He’s asking about the details for dinner.” Beth bites her lip and looks up. She makes the choice to share. “He’s being weird.”

Annie makes a visible effort to school her eyebrows. She holds out her hand, like an olive branch. “Let me see.”

Beth shuffles over to her and relinquishes her phone. Annie looks at the chat, scrolls a bit. Ruby leans in to peer over Annie’s shoulder.

Annie shakes her head. “What’s with all the emojis?”

“He’s just making fun of me. You know what he’s like.”

“I mean he never texts me ever. Much less contacted me in the middle of the night.”

Annie looks at Ruby, who looks back at her and shrugs. They both look at Beth.

Ruby begins to hedge, at what Beth isn’t sure. “Why didn’t you text him already? Didn’t you lock in plans with the store lady’s daughters last night?”

“Well, we were all on the phone. Afterward, it was too late.” Her voice comes out a little small because if Beth stops to think about it, it isn’t the whole truth. 

Ruby takes the phone from Annie and starts flipping through the message history herself. “It doesn’t look like the crime boss has any issues with you texting him late at night.”

“Yeah, does he even sleep? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him yawn. God, he’s such a pod person.” 

“Always looking mighty put together, all angry and fierce.” 

Ruby and Annie share another meaningful look. 

“Beth—” Annie folds her hands together, overly official as she turns to her sister. “Do you know what a booty call is?”

Beth splutters, embarrassment flaming. She masks it with offense. “Of course, I do.” Annie quirks a brow, but Beth continues. “—and that is not a booty call. He’s just—” 

Ruby looks up at Beth and her gaze is kind. “This man is teasing you.” 

Annie scoffs, turning to Ruby and raising her hand again to gesture at Beth. “It’s like middle school, but with guns. I bet he’d tug on her hair or snap her bra strap if given half the chance.” 

Beth’s mind runs a mile a second, trying to understand why they’ve come to this incredibly erroneous conclusion. “What do you mean?”

“Beth.” Annie sounds out her name, pained. Then, she seems to contain herself, just barely. “There’s a text right above that one—from last weekend?”

The engagement ring and the heart. 

“It was ironic.”

Ruby squints at her. “Was it?” 

“And before that there were was a text from November about meeting him at the park?” 

Ruby holds out a showy pointer finger to Annie. “It was actually the last of many.”

Annie nods, “Those weren’t drops, right? Because he was picking up here—with Mick.”

“The park was just—” _Personal_ , something inside of Beth resounds. God, she’s an idiot.

There’s a pregnant pause, then Annie just comes out and asks, “What was the park, Beth?” 

What _was_ the park? Those hours at the park were a balm during those terrible last months of being married to Dean and working so damn much to make something for herself, to will something different into existence. It was some semblance of mending—for her sanity, for them, and the terrible things between them. Despite that grind, she could always make time for the park, and despite everything Rio had ever said about her and him, the park wasn’t business, not to her. 

But, Rio had stopped showing. 

When Beth can speak, her voice is soft, smaller than she would like. “I don’t know.” 

Heat of embarrassment at being caught out—at what she’s not fully sure—burns again on her cheeks. Eventually, her gaze comes into focus on the tabletop and she realizes the room has been quiet. When she looks up, Ruby’s gaze is soft, bittersweet. Annie’s expression is frozen in alarmed disbelief. Her sister snaps her mouth shut, and then she takes a deep breath through her nose. “Do you need help?”

“What?”

“With talking to him, _Rio._ ” His name echoes between them—never coming up directly in conversation. Annie looks back down at the chat. “This is a thing we can help with.” 

Ruby continues this thread, adopting her most soothing tone, “Let us help you.” 

Beth’s gaze darts between her sister and her best friend. She didn’t expect _this_. She knew their opinions on Rio, never expected support—for whatever this pretend-relationship fiasco is. “You’re not mad?”

Annie’s eyes look dramatically skyward, and then she says, “I am choosing to take the higher road here, and not comment on how poor of a decision this is.”

“I’m not actually dating him, Annie.” Beth starts, defensively. It comes out a little choked up, and god, she’s not helping herself. 

Annie gestures placatingly with her hand, shushing her, “It’s okay.” She teeters over so that her hand can land softly on the back of Beth’s. Annie’s skin is soft and warm. She pats Beth with care. “You can reach out for support, y’know?”

Beth isn’t sure what to do with her hands. When Annie was little, hell when Beth was little herself, it had been so easy to be affectionate with her sister. Suddenly, unsure of how to let her little sister hold her hand, Beth feels old. Her loneliness tugs bitterly at the corner of her lips. 

“I know you’re all newly Miss Independent Divorcée but you’re allowed to rely on other people. You’re allowed to rely on me.” Annie’s voice cracks a little on the last syllable. 

Beth’s eyes dart to Ruby, and Ruby meets her, steady. “And you know I’ve got you. You can rely on both of us.” 

Beth wants to give in to a cathartic friend crying session. But, she knows Ruby still has more to say and every inch of her body is tensed for it—the backlash. She waits as Ruby looks down and folds her hands together. Then she straightens to look squarely back at Beth. “You know that I don’t agree with you falling further into this. Not because I judge you, Beth, but because I worry about you, constantly. It’s been what— two years? And there’s a kidnapping, and gunshot wounds, and _murder_ between you and— and Rio.” Her voice lingers over the syllables, also unused to saying it aloud. “And I don’t see that Rio’s going away. In fact, I see that both of you seeking out quite the opposite.”

“Ruby, it’s only because of the store. I had to.” 

Ruby nods, seemingly wanting to take Beth’s word, but something on her face tells Beth that she doesn’t fully believe her. It makes Beth _ache_. “You’re sure about that, B? If he called you right now about some new hustle, some fun scheme to get us all rich… If he popped the question about being his partner-in-crime, you could say no?”

Beth swallows against the lump in her throat, because she knows the truth is she had been saving for months to buy Paper Porcupine, committing herself intrinsically to crime, and a continued partnership with Rio. She’s not sure what it means that she has to look away. Maybe that she really is an idiot. 

“I don’t like it,” Ruby says solemnly, and Beth flinches. “But, I love you and you can’t keep him a secret. You are a grown woman and you deserve privacy but I can’t keep wondering at what’s going on, if you’re safe—from him.”

“This is only pretend,” Beth insists. “But, I am safe.” 

Ruby gestures, heartbroken, to the store, and Lucy’s memory feels less like an individual specter more like fog. Beth is smothered in it every day, she understands it, but she also intuitively knows that Rio isn’t a physical threat to her anymore—wants to transmit this truth to her friend and her sister’s brains. 

“I was serious when I called off the hit.” 

Ruby takes a shaky breath, and Beth comes closer, drawing her friend into a hug. She presses the side of her face against Ruby’s. “I hate your face and I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going to a dinner party with a stupid pseudo-boyfriend.” 

Ruby’s arms squeeze tight around Beth.

“As long as you stay safe, B.”

Beth loosens her embrace and leans back to smile tentatively at her friend, waiting and hoping. Ruby caves, “And I hate your face, too.”

Next to Ruby, Annie dots at her eyes and punches the passcode to open Beth’s phone again. “So… we still need to text your new boyfriend, excuse me, 'pseudo-boyfriend' back.” 

Beth laughs. 

Ruby’s mouth twists, “Do we have to text him back in emoji? Like is this a thing you guys do?”

“No! He’s just being rude.” 

“Is he really?” Ruby asks, skeptical again. “I cannot believe this boy is in his feels about you again.”

“He’s _not_ —”

Ruby pushes forward, “So you still need to tell him the details for Saturday…” 

Annie tsks, “He’s going to be pissed you waited this long. His schedule is totally batshit. He’s mad enough when we need to reschedule a drop and that’s only a come and go type of thing.”

“Well, he said he could do anytime.”

Ruby looks at Beth. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

Beth tries to be nonchalant when she says, “Yeah, well he said he would clear his schedule.” Because she knows exactly how it sounds and it doesn’t help her argument. She rolls her eyes at Ruby and Annie’s resulting knowing expressions, teasing grins tugging at their lips. 

“Guys, come on.” 

Ruby takes the phone from Annie and begins to text. 

“So the dinner is Saturday at 6?” 

“Yes.”

“And you said it was at their house…What were those girl’s names?” 

“Say that it’s at Miriam’s house in Ann Arbor.”

Ruby finishes writing and taps firmly, sending the text. “Alright! Done.”

A few seconds later, the phone chimes.

Annie crowds in with Ruby to read the text.

Beth is jittery and suddenly feels desperate to take the phone back, “What does it say?”

“He’s asking about the address.”

At this, Beth does take the phone and copies and pastes the address from the text chain with Majorie and Miriam. She offers to meet him at their house. 

“That’s a lot of typing.” Ruby holds out her hand. “Let us see.” 

They exchange the phone and Annie snorts. “You want to meet him there? What—you worried he’s finally going to murder you in the G-Wagon?”

Ruby nods, sagely, “On the way back, right?”

Annie rolls her eyes. “Maybe this a good thing, a low-stakes opportunity for you to practice dating. Get your toes wet. Learn… basic social norms.”

“With our would-be murderer?” 

“Oh my god, stop being prickly because I mentioned toes again.” Annie reaches out to tap her boot to Ruby’s. Ruby squirms away.

“God, Annie, I was really trying not to think about your wet hobbit feet.”

Beth inserts herself, “I just rather not be in the car with him for that long. I googled the address. It’s forty-seven minutes from my apartment. What are we going to talk about?”

“What do you always talk about?” 

The phone buzzes again. Annie laughs at what comes up on the screen. 

“He said—” Ruby sounds out the letters, “‘L-o-l, no.’ He’s going to pick you up at five.”

Beth presses her hands to her face and groans. She has precisely forty-one hours before he comes to find her for their non-date. Anxious, she thinks she could text Majorie and Miriam on Saturday morning that she’s sick and it wouldn’t be entirely untrue. “I haven't been to a dinner party in so long—since maybe before Emma was born.” Beth lowers her hands and lets out a big sigh. “What do I even wear?”

She starts to mentally sift through her closet. She could run out tomorrow morning before work to buy something, but, she could never buy off the rack with her cup-size. She could tailor it herself— but her good Singer is still at the house with the kids, left in close proximity to their clothes.

“You have that cute polka-dot dress,” Ruby says. “That burgundy one with the white dots.”

“Not that one.” It’s a little too quick, a little too vehement. Beth’s ears burn, and the flush spreads across her face full-force.

Ruby and Annie blink at her. They look at each other. Then Ruby prods, “You were wearing it just the other day.” 

“Yeah, the day I won the bid for the store. I shouldn’t wear it for the dinner party.”

Annie had stayed focused on Beth’s face through her deflection and suddenly gasps. “Oh my god. Were you wearing it when you boned?”

“No—I—” Beth splutters. _Say the truth, Beth._ “Yes.”

Ruby and Annie’s eyes widen comically as they grin at each other. Caught out, Beth’s face takes on a deeper shade.

“Polkadots,” Ruby shakes her head. “Who would have thought?”

“Wow,” Annie says, chuckling to herself. “I guess after that girl—that chick in the parking lot—I figured he’d be into waifish hotties in tight black outfits.” She says it glibly, but it lands hard on that old bruise on Beth’s heart. 

“I would have agreed, but Marcus’s mom was totally normal. I mean she was very pretty and also melanated but—a mom,” Ruby points out. “But, to be fair, we’ve seen him stare Beth down in a winter parka and those ancient duck boots she won’t switch out.” 

This conversation is making Beth feel like she has whiplash.

“What was his reaction to seeing you wear it the other day?” Annie asks.

“My parka?”

“The polka-dot dress.”

“He barely mentioned it,” Beth says it and then realizes it’s not entirely true. Her cheeks feel hot and she presses her the back of her palms to cool her face. 

Annie raises an eyebrow. “So, he noticed.”

“His reaction was that he decided to ‘pretend’” Now, Ruby’s using the air quotes too and Beth is so overwhelmed. “—to be her boyfriend.” 

“Oh my god. You guys weren’t even there!” 

Annie snaps her fingers. “What about that purple dress? The one you wore for Kenny’s birthday party two years ago. Do you still have it?"

In fact, it had recently been returned to Beth with the rest of her clothes that Rio had stollen. She had always felt good wearing it—sexy with the way it highlighted her curves. It was one of the few surviving articles from the purge of things related to her marriage.

Ruby’s gaze darts sideways to Annie. “I cannot believe you are suggesting that dress. He took one look at her and honestly, I wasn’t sure what he was going to do with her inside of that bedroom.”

“Oh, we knew what he wanted to do,” Annie says, her voice loaded with innuendo. She turns to Beth. “Wear that. You’ll feel great and he’ll love it.” 

Ruby steeples her fingers. “I don’t think we want to provoke him any further, Annie.”

"And that was two years ago,” Beth adds. “Before all the nasty, terrible stuff. We don’t even know if he’s ever, you know…” Her mouth opens making what she’s sure are ridiculous configurations as she flounders, “ —cared.”

Annie’s jaw hangs open for a moment. Then she pulls it together and addresses Ruby first, “Okay, I love my sister, so stop trying to guilt me. Maybe what they need is to finally fuck again and get over whatever this is.” Ruby raises her eyebrows, considering Annie’s point but with a formidable amount of hesitation, as Beth splutters indignantly again. 

Annie turns to her sister. “And Beth, I know homeboy has been super shady about his feelings but he has them.” Beth shakes her head, but Annie nods adamantly back at her. “They are in there somewhere because, bizarrely, we are all still alive.”

She pauses to knock on the wooden surface of the worktable, and murmurs a quick, _Rest in peace, Lucy._ Ruby crosses herself. For a second, Beth’s stomach plummets, and fuzzy words for an old prayer tug at her brain. She curls her fingers around the edge of the table to steady herself, focusing on the sturdy wood top as she processes what Annie said. Somehow despite the grief and all of the terrible things, it feeds the kernel of warmth inside of her.

“Is he the ideal romantic prospect? Nope, definitely not.” Annie’s lips pop and enunciate the ‘puh’.Beth marvels at how her little sister can always find room for irreverence. “And no matter how this fake-dating sitch goes, I have to make it clear that you are not allowed to become his wife-in-crime or whatever. But, maybe you guys can go through the motions—” Annie thrusts a little with her hips, rocking on the stool. “Bone, y’know.” Beth can feel her eyes popping out of her face, discomfort swallowing her whole. Annie raises a mollifying hand in response. “It’s just a suggestion. And then you guys can get whatever this is out of your systems, we can all move on and you can start dating, like, for real.”

Beth blinks at Annie. She’s honestly not sure if she’s following—and this is really just all too much. 

Ruby seems to only be in partial agreement, still struggling with where she lands with the whole Beth and Rio dynamic. “And just for clarification, Beth should start dating someone _else_ for real.” 

“Yes. God, yes. But for now, make the most out of a short-term fix.”

“So you _want_ me to sleep with him?”

“No,” Ruby says, emphatically.

“I mean…” Annie looks from Beth to Ruby and shrugs. “Maybe? Again, not the ideal prospect, but at least the sex will be good, right? You’ll get back on the saddle?”

Ruby purses her lips, staring at Annie down. Annie shifts back to Beth. She holds up her hand to cover her mouth from Ruby’s eyes, and shout whispers, “Wear the purple dress.” 

“Okay,” Beth agrees. “I do love that dress.” Then she holds out a finger, gesturing to Annie. “But, for the record, I am _not_ sleeping with him.” 

“But, if the night takes you there…”

“It won’t.” 

“B, if he takes even one unexpected detour in the G-Wagon—call your girl.” Ruby passes back the phone to Beth. “I already turned on your location sharing and I will be monitoring it on Saturday.”

Beth laughs. 

Together, chatting and joking again, they wrap up the batch in much better spirits.

* * *

On Saturday, Beth trades a coworker for the morning shift at the store. She’s there to open at eight and back to her apartment by two. The countdown ticks along—there are three hours before Rio picks her up. Her to-do list runs parallel to the clock: finish the dessert, call the kids and confirm for tomorrow, then shower, hair, makeup, get dressed, and try not to think—of anything but especially not of five pm or of six, or seven, or eight, or… god forbid they’re still there at nine. Beth’s palms have been sweaty since she woke up this morning. 

She toes off her boots, peels off her winter accouterments, and pads from the entryway across her living room. The mid-day winter light brightens the apartment.Beth had set the heater on low while she was away at work, and the air has become a little nippy. She turns up the heat but the floor is still cold through her wool socks as Beth dips into her kitchen to check on the dessert setting in the fridge. 

Beth had dug deep into her repertoire to find a contribution to tonight’s dinner, all the way to the early days in her marriage. It had been the era when intimate dinners with friends—Dean’s friends, colleagues, and their wives—had last been a regular staple in her life. Childless, it was a time before princess cupcakes, intricate pie crusts, and before she had baked the first iteration of what would become her award-winning mini-muffins. Those recipes do not feel right for tonight. 

Instead, Beth had elected an easy if showy dessert—coeur á la créme. She had picked it from a worn copy of Julia Child’s _Menus for Special Occasions_ that she had bought for herself as a newlywed in the late 90s.Coeur á la créme was a rich blend of cream cheese, white chocolate, powdered sugar, and heavy cream, which was then left to sit overnight in a mold of choice. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, Beth is using it as an excuse to break out the mold she had inherited from her mother, hardly used—the one in the shape of a heart. The recipe was certainly old school, but the end result was still too lovely to truly be dismissed as dated.

It was time for the last of the prep. Beth needs to unfold the mixture from the mold, plate it and top it with the vibrant red pureé of raspberries she had made the night before. Before she starts, she props her phone on the countertop. There are a few encouraging texts from Ruby and Annie, a request for a selfie in her outfit, that she dismisses to dial Kenny. Beth sets the call on speaker and begins to assemble her mise en place. 

The phone dials loud in the room, as she darts about nabbing things from the fridge. Kenny answers on the fourth ring, while Beth is in her utensil drawer grabbing the wide spoon she needs to drizzle the pureé. The drawer is stiff and she has to nudge it in with her hip, and afterward, the room is bathed in silence. The calls usually start with a quiet pause, before Kenny remembers the etiquette she taught him—that _he’s_ supposed to answer the call by saying hello. Beth heaves a mental sigh, _teenagers_. 

Kenny is playing video games with Danny and they’re only half paying attention, some sort of tournament that’s “about to be done”, a distant, “yeah, yeah we’ll be right back”. Quickly, she’s passed to her daughters. Beth does the rounds individually reminding all four of her children that she will be picking them up for a day at her apartment tomorrow. With Valentine’s Day coming up the following weekend, Beth is making an effort to continue their tradition of crafting valentines as a family, while Beth works on this year’s Valentine boxes for the kids. The reminder is met with squeals of delight from Emma, disinterest from Jane, and what Beth intuits as a blushing silence from Danny—she’ll have to figure that out later.

Eventually, the phone is passed back to Kenny, and he reports matter-of-factly that he will be tagging along on the visit to Beth’s apartment like the rest of his siblings but he will not participate in the creation of valentines—nor does he want her to make him a box. Beth by this point has moved on to spooning the pureé onto the white plated heart, and inadvertently plops an enormous dollop. She stills her spoon immediately, trying not to spill any more of the sauce. She can picture Kenny’s little shrug as he says, “I’m not participating this year.” 

"You don't want to give a card to one of your friends?" She realizes that her voice sounds perhaps a touch too scandalized. Beth takes a steadying breath as she tries to even out the big red dollop.

“Boys in the eighth grade don't do that mom." 

"That's not true,” Beth counters with the wisdom of yesteryears. “I received a ton of valentines from my classmates while I was in middle school.” The former-dollop shifts into an artful stroke and Beth spoons out a little bit more of the raspberry sauce. “I got them all the way through high school. I still have every Valentine your Auntie Ruby wrote to me. And, of course, I kept a few from your father.“

He coughs, “That’s different.”

“What’s different about it?”

“Well, you’re a girl, and that was like, in the seventies.”

Shoot her in the heart why doesn’t he? "The nineties,” Beth corrects, dryly. 

"Same thing."

Beth is careful to keep her voice from sounding terse as she asks, “Do boys not make valentines?” It’s only been a few weeks since she moved out but perhaps it was already too much time with Dean. Kenny was already visually Dean’s mini-me and he’s a _teenager_ now. What if he grew up to emulate his dad through and through? Maybe she really did need to re-think— 

Kenny’s voice comes out in a rush, starting in a childish whine and ending in a surly grumble, “I mean they do but I don’t want to. Auntie Annie always says that Valentine’s Day is a corporate holiday anyways and that it’s bull and not a true marker of love.” 

They had all been the recipient of that rant many a time. Beth mostly believes it herself, too. But, _she_ is a recently separated woman who had been in a loveless marriage to a mediocre, deceitful husband for over twenty years. Kenny is _thirteen_.

“Don’t say bull.” Beth looks down at her dessert, itself a white heart doused in a vibrant red. Her dessert was dressed up for February and meant to acknowledge Vandenberg’s graciousness in hosting her and her stupid, fake boyfriend, to celebrate the exchange of the store between their family and her fabricated and in some ways too real partnership, and—to be shared with Rio. “It’s only really ‘corporate’—” _God, why is she using air quotes while on the phone to her child who cannot see her._ She hates Annie and her terrible influence. “—if you’re buying your cards and spending an atrocious amount of money on roses and chocolate.”

“Dad used to buy you roses and chocolate on Valentine’s Day, _and_ jewelry.” Kenny clears his throat, then mumbles. “Y’know, _before_.”He means before the separation and a sharp pain resounds deep in Beth’s gut. He’s the only one old enough to remember when Dean put some semblance of an effort into their marriage. “Does that mean _he’s_ corporate?”

Beth feels a chuckle bubble up, “Kenneth, don’t twist my words.” She lays down her spoon. She’ll retain the last of the sauce to drizzle once they’re at the Vandenbergs, one final spruce up with some of the remaining raspberries. The sharpness, the inflammation of guilt, continues to spear her and Beth tries again with her son, “Don’t you want to remind your friends that you care?” 

There’s a pause, and she holds her breath hoping he’ll change his mind, be good to his friends like she taught him, participate in her tradition for their family. Then Kenny mumbles, “I don’t want to, Mom.” 

Her mind flashes to tomorrow, and worries he’ll spend the day fixed on her couch, snug in one of her quilted blankets and glued to his phone, as the rest of the family colors and glues and crafts around him. Having four children means Beth has had to build up skill in taking the sum of the situation for what it is—a net positive—and letting the rest go. Isn’t it enough that three of them are excited? Well, Jane can’t quite be described as excited. She can be more of a tomboy and is interested in the cutesy crafts only half the time. But, at least she’ll pretend to do it and then, Beth will swoop in to finish her cards. 

But, Kenny’s her eldest and he’s always changing, growing. He’s the one she can always count on to push her back into discomfort when she finds her footing in her parenting, and now they’re no longer even under the same roof and how long will it be before the others follow suit— “That’s okay, Kenny. If you change your mind, there will be plenty to go around.” Beth angles for a compromise, “But if you do choose not to make cards, we have to think about other ways you can show appreciation to your friends.”

Kenny huffs, and Beth lets him go with an _I love you_. 

Then, she’s alone with her thoughts, her thrumming nervousness, and her dwindling countdown. Beth brings the spoon to her lips and samples the remnants of the raspberry sauce. The tart sweetness explodes across her tongue—it’s amazing, objectively so. She is sure it will be a hit. She even allows herself to think the thing that’s been floating at the edges of her prep: _I hope he loves it_.

* * *

Beth takes a bath, nothing too luxurious but she makes herself come (just to take the edge off (and adamantly doesn’t think too much about the fantasy she indulges in or who stars in it with her)).She shaves, takes her time moisturizing, evens out her nails in her pink bathroom. It’s not a date, and it’s not like Rio will see all of this skin tonight (or ever again). But, it’s fun, something to do while she waits for the clock to turn five. 

The sale of Paper Porcupine hasn’t been finalized, and she doesn’t want to leave any part of tonight’s performance to chance. 

Beth blows out her hair and curls the ends.She brushes her teeth. Then she puts on music, Beyoncé to get into the groove. She starts applying her makeup and tries to stop thinking about the time. Beth decides on a pink lip that will pop with the flowers on her dress, along with a rosy blush and winged eyeliner. It’s more than her usual look and she looks _good_ —and why is she in her forties and still doubting herself? 

But, she’s not sure how something like this goes—with _Rio_. She knows how to play Dean’s trophy wife, the precise feel of the smile, the exact script, the specific way to orbit her body around her ex-husband. Beth tucks the tubes and compacts back into their respective places and lets herself think about that girl in the parking lot, whoever she was. She was beautiful, young, svelte—Beth doesn’t look anything like her. She thinks of Rhea who is lovely, and also a mom, but Rio knew her _before_ that. Rhea wasn’t at all high-strung (Beth could admit she was, sometimes) and was also younger than Beth. She wonders for the umpteenth time what Rio likes, what he finds attractive, _who_. 

She lets this line of thought continue unchecked and Beth considers the way Rio looked at her before the shooting. She considers the places he couldn’t let go of when she finally let them touch. Even now, she can conjure the reverence of his palm cupping her breasts, curving over her stomach, clenching at her thighs, squeezing her ass. His teeth had marked up her cleavage, bruised a spot by one of her nipples, along her neck, he had nipped at her ears. He had laid kisses across her cheeks, her lips, her brows, brushed her eyelids with the softness of his lips, continued lower to kiss the inside of a knee, followed the path up to her cunt. Afterward, he had held her, his nose buried in her hair, the smell of sex heavy in the room. For an afternoon, it seemed there wasn’t anything he didn’t love.

Then she had ruined it, dashing it to bits, then he had taken a turn, and then her again, and then him—that toxic cycle of theirs ultimately coalescing in the most terrible way. Here they were pretending at this all this time later. But, who even were they these days? Well, Rio made it clear earlier this week—they were business, or rather she was his meal ticket. 

Well… tonight was all a ruse anyway, that hopefully, they would pass with flying colors. Perhaps, she should really take Annie’s advice and consider it practice, dipping a toe in. Of course, they would never sleep together again. At this point, she and Rio were a lost cause. There wasn’t any skin in the game, you know, feelings-wise. So she could go through the motions and practice the dance and it doesn’t have to be a big deal. They couldn’t ruin what was between them any further right?

Beth pours herself some bourbon—for her nerves—and gets dressed, still swaying along to the music. She picks out a pair of minty blue satin panties and her nicest bra. She puts on the dress, tugs at the sleeves and the hem, and stares at herself in the mirror. 

Beth remembers Ruby’s comment about the heat of Rio’s stare way back at the beginning. Suddenly, she realizes the heater has been left on too long and she’s uncomfortably hot, her palms itchy. Actually, she’s itchy all over. She pulls off the dress and flings it onto the bed, paces back and forth around it. She goes to thermostat, turns off the heat, and then grabs her phone and turning off the music. She turns to her closet. _There could be something else_ , in fact, she’s sure she would make another dress work, but she looks back at the purple dress. 

Beth puts it on again. 

Without letting herself think too much, she moves to put on her pink pumps with the fun, chunky heel—it’s only a short walk out to the car anyways. She can make it. Beth settles in the heels, throws her shoulders back and looks at herself the mirror. 

She glows, like she could kindle at any minute. 

But, maybe it’s bad? Maybe she should go to the bathroom and wipe it all off? Put on her regular look with clothes a smidge more sensible for the snow banks outside? What was she doing this level of pretending for anyways? 

Beth takes a breath and then adjusts her boobs in the dress, unnecessarily accenting her cleavage. She picks up her glass of bourbon from where she had set it on her dresser, and downs it to the last dregs. 

She deserves to feel good. 

Beth returns to her jewelry case, picking out the pieces she had deliberated over the night before. She puts a delicate gold hoop through her conch, grabs some bigger pieces for her earlobes and a statement ring with a big pink stone that she’s sure she’ll regret as soon as she steps outside without her gloves. She puts on a bracelet and is just securing the clasp of her old gold bar necklace when the doorbell rings. She drops it. Her eyes snap to the clock at her bedside table—four-fifty. 

Mother _fucker_.

Beth curses his punctuality, knows he’s early _on purpose_ and considers letting Rio wait out there. But, it’s February 6 th and it’s freezing and she knows she should go get him. Beth picks the necklace off the floor, bunching it in her hand. Her heels click as she marches to the front door and she feels sexy, powerful, _annoyed_. 

Her phone starts to buzz from behind her in the bedroom and Beth snaps, projecting her voice through the door, “I’m coming.” 

Beth’s fingers fly to the dead bolts, then she’s twisting the door handle. She’s already glaring as she pulls open the door. 

And there he is. 

She zeros in on his bottom lip as it drops, and the air from outside is frigid but she feels _warm_. Rio’s face is carefully blank as his eyes slide low, all the way down to her pumps, and back up, lingering at all the places he used to love to linger. Does she imagine a caress along the lines of the dress? He swallows, the tattoo at his throat bobbing, as his eyes meet hers again. He smiles, something small and she’s not sure what it means. 

She shifts a bit, adjusting in her stance, and huffs. Beth refuses to let her gaze soften, staring at him imperiously, as she looks him over, too. 

His beard is scruffy, his eyes are dark, his cheekbones astonishingly sharp for someone who hasn’t had professional modeling career.He holds of unopened bottle of very expensive bourbon in his hands as he stands on her front landing looking impossibly good. She wishes wildly that everything was different and she could invite him in, that they could blow off the dinner and not leave her bed for weeks—or ever. Beth’s indignation eases, and she leans her weight into the door. 

“Hi.” 

“Hey.” 

Suddenly, it occurs to her, “Is this the first time you’ve knocked?”

He shrugs.

They regard each other for a few seconds longer, and the moment feels heady, like _before,_ like they’re _good_. But, weren't they just at each other's throats a few days ago? She takes a shaky breath, and Rio proffers the bottle. 

“Invite me in for a drink?” 

_Yes_ , Beth’s heart resounds. Then, she realizes what Rio’s really asking. She has to let him into her new apartment. _Son of a bitch_. “Maybe you should wait in the car.” 

He chuckles. “Don’t be like that, Elizabeth.” 

Goosebumps rise on her arms as she becomes aware of the cold air that wafts through the open doorway. Beth shifts back, opening the door wider for a moment, and then Rio’s inside her apartment and she’s closing the door behind him.

They pause just inside the doorway, still eying each other. She can smell his cologne, something expensive with hints of vetiver. Her mouth is dry and she realizes her heart is beating out of her chest. 

_What on earth are they doing?_

Beth tries to collect herself, and insists, “Only for a minute.” 

The necklace is still wound through the fingers of her left hand and she unspools it, raising it back up to her neck. 

“Let me help you,” Rio murmurs and he motions for her to turn. He takes the necklace from her and steps in close. She gathers her hair above the nape of her neck and she feels his fingers brush along the little hairs there. His fingertips give her goosebumps again, and there’s that stupid cologne again. Something in her throbs low and she really needs to take Annie’s advice and get laid. But, by, literally, anyone else.

Rio clasps the necklace. As Beth lets go of her hair, she feels him tug at the tie around her waist. 

“What’s this dress, mama?”

“What do you mean?” She aims for nonchalance, turning away to pull the bow out of his reach. “It’s a dinner party.”

He hums noncommittal, stepping further into the apartment as his gaze spans the living room and her piecemeal furniture. 

A muted part of her brain wonders what he sees, but her eyes follow _him_. Rio’s wearing all black—there’s a beanie that she associates with drops pulled low. The faded ink on his neck curves over a sharp peacoat with elegant lines—even nicer than his usual and the kind of thing that costs a fortune and isn’t wholly practical for winters year in and year out in Detroit. It wasn’t even appropriate for this evening’s typical, bitter February chill, a down jacket much more sensible. But, it was a choice, just like her dress is a choice. She wants to pry open the coat’s buttons and see what’s underneath. Was he wearing one of his button ups? Something softer? What color? Her gaze continues down the length of him, following the dark wash pants to ankle-length boots in a soft black leather. None of it was sensical, just barely seasonally appropriate, but Rio looked sinfully good, effortlessly so. 

Is this the kind of thing he wears on real dates? 

He turns back and catches her eying his boots.“You want me to take my shoes off?”

“I said,” Beth reminds him, primly, “just one minute.” Rio’s lips twist in amusement. He holds up the bottle again. 

She walks past him, “The kitchen’s this way.”

The apartment is small, but it isn’t the open floor plans he seems to prefer. If left to his own devices, Beth is worried he could get lost, perhaps purposefully. She’s positive he could unearth something from somewhere that is unbearably mortifying, and knows she needs to mind him. 

She walks up to the coeur á la créme, already sealed away in it’s travel container. She grabs the reserve of sauce and the last of the raspberries from the fridge. 

“What’s this?” Rio asks. 

“Dessert,” Beth responds matter-of-factly. She looks up at him, reads his expression. “I know you’re bringing a bottle, but we can’t show up _without food_.” 

“Ain’t you paying them for that old-fashioned lil’ store of theirs? And the bottle’s for you.” Rio quirks his eyebrows. “You don’t want to do a shot?

“First of all, plenty of millennials and people my age shop there. Second, I was able to talk them down from paying a pretty penny for that store, no thanks to you. And third—” She stares at him in disbelief. “You’re driving.”

"Well, I meant for you."

Beth rears up, and Rio seems to delight in her prickliness. 

“That's..." She scoffs. "Rude.” He seems to mentally be awarding himself a point for riling her up so Beth decides to bring him down a peg. “ And you should have clarified because you driving all that way—,” she says, adopting that sage tone she had used earlier with Kenny and mixing it with some playfulness. “—with your scrawniness. It’s not safe." 

He blinks at her, mouth dropping opening a smidge. “‘Scuse me?” Rio says, affronted but amused. 

Points! All of them to Beth. She reaches forward pinching at the sleeve of his coat, “So thin. And besides,” she continues, “I already had had a drink.” 

He rolls his eyes, seemingly not taking the point loss to heart. Then he says, “Maybe you should have another?"

So rude. 

"Well, by one I meant I had a double,” she admits, refusing to sound sheepish. She’s an adult! 

“You’re the one who got us into this.” Rio’s gaze is sly, when he teases, “You nervous, ma?”

“No.” She defends, quickly. 

Rio chuckles and then eyes her with concern. “Maybe we should have a smoke?” She looks at him scandalized, so he pivots, “Or... how bout some water?" 

Beth rolls her eyes. “Oh my god— let’s go. Bring the bourbon.” 

“I got another on in the car. This one’s just for you.” Rio looks around the kitchen, his eyes taking inventory of all her house-wife cookware scrunched into its new home. He doesn’t look put upon to leave. “A gift for your new apartment.”

“You already gave me a gift.”

He raises his eyebrows, waiting.

“My ottoman.” 

Rio laughs. “Didn’t see it out there.”

“True,” Beth admits. “It has been returned to it’s rightful place, to be abused as a play thing by my children.” She shrugs. “My mother-in-law bought it. It was never my taste.” 

He nods along with her, listening closely—and he always does but usually he pretends that he doesn’t, plays aloof or holier-than-thou or just plain uninterested. But, right now, one hundred percent of his attention is transparently on her words. It’s what made her crush for him fester in the first place—and of all times for him to bring it back out. That persistent kernel inside her fidgets.

Rio sets the bourbon on the counter. “Maybe we can come in later for a nightcap. Drink to the new business,” he drawls. 

“Maybe.” That warm thing throbs again, low inside Beth, and she wonders what he’s angling for. “Maybe not.

Several other memorable kitchen scenes come to mind, and suddenly, this kitchen, previously untainted by memories of them, feels too small. She itches for an escape and they’ve got to get going soon anyways. It hits her again that she’ll have to spend forty-five minutes in the car with him— _now_. Beth already needs air. “I need to grab a few things.  Stay right there. ” 

Before he can answer, she darts into her bedroom. She gives herself a last onceover, then grabs her phone and her purse. She heads back to the kitchen to grab the dessert, but it’s gone. She does a quick inventory of the living room and spots the dessert container sitting on the table by the entry way, with a smaller container of the sauce resting on it. Rio, seemingly bewitched by the things he’d stollen and had access to for a the better part of a year, ambles about the living room. But, she realizes he is examining a new addition—the picture of Beth at Ruby’s wedding. He hovers over the frame, but he’s either actually psychic or sees her in his periphery, because out of the pockets of his coat he presents a small Tupperware with the left over raspberries. 

Rio looks up at her, a small smile on his lips. He nods to the container she’s transporting the dessert in. “What’s in there?”

“Coeur á la créme?” Beth offers.

He squints. “What now?” He walks over to the dessert, starts to pry at the opaque lid of the dessert container. She’s surprised he didn’t already.

“Don’t peak. Now it gets to be a surprise.” 

He pouts. “Is it French?” 

“I mean…the name is French. I don’t know if this is actually something they eat in France.” Beth clarifies, “It’s an old Julia Child recipe.” 

Her phone buzzes in her purse. Beth checks the text—it’s Annie again, rallying for Beth to take a selfie in her outfit. Beth smiles to herself and makes a mental note to take one later, once they get to the Vandenberg’s. She’s sure Miriam has a fancy bathroom she can utilize for just this purpose. 

“What?” 

Beth looks up. Rio nods at the smile still lingering on her lips.

“Nothing. It’s just Annie.”

“She worried?”

Beth blinks.

“No—that would be Ruby,” she amends. “Annie wants a picture of my dress.” 

Rio tilts his head considering, looks her up and down again, then beckons her closer. “C’mere.”

Beth swallows. 

“Am I allowed to be in this picture,” he asks. “We can send it to your sister and your friend. Collateral.”

“Isn’t that… unsafe?" Beth can feel her face contorting with disbelief. "What about the FBI?”

“You already gave them that whole story about the pancakes. Probably got plenty of pictures of us already.”

Beth tries to understand his line of thinking… this world-altering shift in their way of being. She supposes it’s true— “We’re known conspirators,” she whispers.

“Yeah.” Rio nods, laughing to himself. Something about it tells her he’s teasing her. “‘Sides, we’re on a date.”

Then, he’s at her side, the firm length of him presses in. He holds out his hand and she offers him her phone. He raises it, angling the phone tall with his long arms. Beth’s eyes fix on the little square, reflecting them. The moment is strange—half of it is like she’s trudging through water, the word ‘date’ traveling slow like a ripple, and the other half is moving _so_ fast.She watches as the Rio in the square smiles the smallest possible smile. 

Fuck it. 

She reaches into the folds of the coat and pinches him. Rio smile grows large and Beth smiles triumphantly in return. He snaps a few pictures of them, and lowers the phone for their consideration. They hover, crowded around his palm, as he flips through the photos. They look— they look _really good_? Beth’s palms correspondingly get _really_ sweaty, and something shifts deep in her chest, the fucking kernel.

Rio settles on the first picture. “This one right?” His smile in that one is widest, and he looks incredibly handsome. She’s tucked in close to him, smiling, beautiful and done-up, with a proud glint in her eye. It’s visual proof, finally, of the almost two years of whatever they are. 

Beth shrugs, feigning noncommittal, in actuality spiraling. “They’re all good.” 

He forwards the picture to Annie and Ruby. Then, he sends it to himself. Weakly, Beth reaches over and takes the phone back, and drops in her purse. She doesn’t have the strength to look at the responses she can feel coming in on the phone. 

“You don’t want another one by the door? Just you?” 

She stares at him like he’s grown another head. “What?” 

“Well, it ain’t totally the real deal, but this is your first date since your shitty ex right?”

Beth’s face _flames_. “I mean, so what if it is?”

“Well, you look fuckin’—,” Rio clears his throat, but still, he says it like it’s nothing. “—divine. You want to commemorate it?” 

“Thanks.” She feels very shy and way too seen, and needs the conversation to move away from this mortifying detail. “But, we’ve got to get going.” 

"Relax, ma. We ain't gonna be late."

Still, Beth grabs her own black peacoat from the coat closet and starts to bundle. All the while, he’s sassing her and she’s sassing him back. 

“Ain't your legs gonna get cold?" Beth catches Rio eyeing her calves.

"Does your Mercedes not have heating?" She replies tartly, as she throws on her pink scarf. Beth forgoes a sensible winter hat to maintain the curls in her hair, and steers away from the fleece-lined gloves for, of all things, the sake of fashion. She steels herself for a cold dash to the car. 

Rio carries the coeur á la créme. Beth locks the door behind them, makes the freezing, precarious sprint down the walkway—and they’re off. 

* * *

The drive to Ann Arbor isn’t as painful as Beth had worried it would be, but the whole idea of it—what they’re doing—has her feeling like she’s jumping out of her skin. Rio cranks up the heater, and they settle in the car’s warm embrace wearing clothes that are not seasonally appropriate, that they both independently chose because they both wanted to look good for their fake-date, and Beth is trying to not to think about it. In fact, her head blissfully blank.So what if she has to keep secretly blotting her sweaty palms against her coat? 

They fly down the interstate as the sun sets, the landscape around the highway bare with mid-winter. Rio’s car is meticulously clean and she can’t quite describe it as a “new car” smell anymore but, it’s certainly a rich car smell (how often does he get the stupid thing detailed?). Every time she’s in here it smells faintly of leather and cleaning product.

The drive starts out quiet, a beat playing low in the background, but the quiet isn’t painful. There’s always lulls like this between them. The intimacy of the car curls around them and it’s almost… nostalgic. Beth’s reminded of better times at picnic tables, of the park last fall (when things had been on the mend (until they weren’t)). Beth tries her hardest to keep her mind blank because if she does allow herself to think, she’ll return, as always, to all the terrible things between them—and how could the them of tonight exist with all of that history? 

Conversation comes out in bits and spurts and then they start to find their groove. They talk first about work and the schedule—nothing about Beth poised to become the proprietress of Paper Porcupine or conspiring about how to make that work in their favor for their business, but just the same, old, same old. The conversation shifts to the respective kids between them. It strangely easy, and devoid of any antagonism. She supposes he’s trying to behave, get them through this. But, Beth notices that Rio circles around the the topic of Dean—asking about the sales at Boland Bubbles, if her and Dean had done combined gifts this past Christmas, if she still needed to get anything out of the house. 

Beth wonders why it interests him. She wonders what he’s looking for. 

Then there’s this, “You get that piercing as a fuck you to your ex?”

She blinks. “What?”

“The conch.” 

Beth raises her hand to to finger the hoop in her ear. What made him finally notice? “I got it a year ago actually.” She worries she’s said too much. She never knows what will set him off— the last thing she wants is to suffer this dinner party with them at their worst.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watches as he grits his jaw. 

“I didn’t get it as a fuck you to anyone. I just wanted it,” Beth continues. “I wanted something for me.” 

“I get it, mama. I got me my piercing, too.” Beth sucks in a breath. “It hurt?” Rio asks. He briefly looks away from the road to peek at her ear.

“A _lot_.” Beth says matter-of-factly. He grins out at the road in front of them, not looking at her as he smiles at her tone. He likes her playful. Inspired, Beth adds, “I might have shed a tear.”

“Damn.” Rio sniffs. “The nose piercing got me good, too.” 

Beth smiles at the admission. Her gaze slides across to the profile of his face—the sharp lines of his nose, his jaw—taking him in. Her heart beats loud in her chest, and she blots her palms again. 

How on earth are they going to pretend that they’re together? Pretend for _hours_? Under the close scrutiny of other people? Beth’s a great storyteller, excellent at weaving a lie but _this_ —

“Rio,” she murmurs. His fingers flex on the steering wheel as he blinks at her use of his name. “Where did you grow up?”

He sucks in his bottom lip, takes a deep breath, lets it out. “Here.” 

She should have known this wasn’t going to be easy.

“Where’s here?”

“Detroit.” He doesn’t elaborate further and Beth doesn’t get the sense that he’s trying to be ugly, but this—sharing—isn’t something they do easily. Maybe if they had met in a different time, in a different way—at a bar like she had made up… 

“Me, too.” Beth offers. 

Rio nods. “Oh yeah? One of those cookie cutter homes up in the ‘burbs or Detroit proper?” He says it sly, with some judgment. Sometimes he’s so on the nose about her and other times— 

“Rosedale Park.” 

Beth watches as Rio’s eyebrows quirk up. 

“Ain’t ever seen you up that way. You still have family there?”

“No.” Beth says, softly. “Not for a long time now.” 

“I have a cousin who lives round there. Off of Schoolcraft.” 

“What about you?”

She holds her breath, sure he won’t answer. Rio arches against the head rest, the lines of his body tensing. He settles back again, “Southwest Detroit, off of Vernor.” 

She blinks at the admission. Her kids had played a few games at a soccer pitch close by, but otherwise she hadn’t spent much time in that part of the city. Beth tucks the information away to pour over later.

Right now, it’s more important that they nail down details, any details. “And we met at the grocery story.” 

Rio nods, “And then we met again at my bar and I took you home.”

“No, no— _I_ took you home.” 

His gaze darts over to her and Beth’s grins back at him, like she’s won something. His lips twist as he looks back out to to the road. “You gonna be good, Elizabeth?”

_God, to be able to read his mind_. “How do you mean?”

“You owe me.” He reminds her, yet again. “You gonna play nice tonight like we agreed?”

“ _Yes_ ,” she implores. “Are you?”

Rio nods. “Seventy-thirty.” 

Beth rolls her eyes, “One hundred, in my favor.”

“Nah,” shakes his head, his tone light. She know she’s going to have to put in some thought about how things will land between them. If she squinted, Beth could see how maybe Rio could land a fifteen percent cut—with the territory business and all that. But, that wasn’t tonight’s battle. 

They fall quiet and _god_ , _don’t they need more to go on_? But, now they’re pulling off the highway. They’re only minutes away—is there even a point of cramming?

“Elizabeth,” Rio intones, his hand briefly reaches across the center console to squeeze her knee. Beth snaps back into place. “We’ll make something up.” 

She resumes searching the profile of his face. “What if we mess this up?”

Rio shakes his head. “You’re good at all this storytellin’, ma. A bold bullshitter if I ever saw one.” He chuckles dryly and cants his head, considering. “Me, too.”

Beth shakes her head at him and mutters indignantly, “When have you ever spun a story in your life?” 

He jerks his back, “‘Scuse me?”

“You’re totally a lies by omission kind of guy.” 

Rio laughs fills the confines of the car. “Baby, I can lie.” 

“We’ll see, _boyfriend_.” She says it to sass him but just saying the word makes Beth blush. Goodness _,_ she’s going to have to play pretend at this for _hours_? 

“Guess we will, _girlfriend_.” Beth hates him, but that warm thing inside her throbs again. 

His lectures from long ago echo in her ears and Beth starts, “Remember you wanted to be a part of this. If you even want to think of a split, you need to earn it.” 

Rio rolls his eyes. “Baby, you made me a part of this when you came on to me in the middle of my business deal—“

Beth flings her hands out, “Just— _stop_. We can’t fight right now.” 

They stop at a red light. Rio rolls his shoulders back, arching his body away from the seat before settling back. The GPS eta reads two minutes away. 

Beth clenches her hands, curling them around the bottom of her coat. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Rio turn to face her full on. Adamantly, she looks straight ahead. 

“Mama, we’ve got the good bourbon. You’ve got your white lady dessert.” Beth makes a noise between a scoff and laugh but she turns to look at him. “And we’re both fuckin’ phenomenal at givin’ the run around.” 

Beth supposes she can see the truth in that. 

The light turns green. Rio takes his foot of the break, and the car moves forward bringing them the final stretch to their destination. 

“They know you bringing the French thing?”

“Of course.” Beth says, exasperated. “I wouldn’t just spring that on Miriam.”

He looks amused, “Uh-huh.” 

“You know it’s impolite to show up without something for the table.” Beth reproaches. 

“That’s why I brought the bourbon.”

“Sure, that’s great. But, don’t you think it’s rude if you ingest most of the thing that you brought?”

He visibly makes the decision not to comment on her lecturing or prudishness. Instead, his eyebrows quirk, and he grins. “How much we drinking tonight?”

“Shut up.” 

They are pullling up in front of a two story home when the GPS announces that they’ve arrived. They park. A few sparse flurries descend in the dusk as they look across the yard at Miriam’s house. The architecture is clearly inspired by a cottage, if cottages could feasibly be enlarged to the proportions and scale of mid-western suburbs. The end effect, complete with withered ivy trailing up the brick, signals French-inspired and family wealth. It’s the sort of house Beth had always dreamed she could afford—maybe someday still. There’s holiday candles already lit in the windows, a big red Valentine’s Day wreath on the blue door at the end of a shoveled walk way. 

Beth turns back to Rio. For a few potent seconds, they look at each other. If they were other people they might do a pep talk right now, but they’re them. Instead, Rio reaches over, squeezes her arm this time. His palm is warm and the pressure does something to comfort Beth, ground her. Then Rio’s gaze is drawn over Beth’s shoulder. Beth turns to see Marjorie is waving at them from the front door, beckoning them inside.


End file.
